Prominent Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Watali, who was granted bail by the Delhi High Court in a terror-funding case being probed by the NIA, could not walk out of jail as the agency got a stay order from the apex court in less than 24 hours.
While granting bail to Watali on Thursday, the Delhi High Court had ruled that the documents submitted by NIA did not lead to a conclusion that the he “received money from the Pakistan High Commission or others and was passing on the said funds to the Hurriyat leaders for funding terrorist activities and stone pelting.”
A senior NIA official said that they urgently moved Supreme Court on Friday morning against the bail order on the plea that the “High Court did not examine the material evidence placed on record.” The official said it was “unprecedented” that the agency was able to get a stay order before the accused could walk out of Tihar jail. He said the stay order was valid till September 26 when the arguments against the bail begin in the Supreme Court.
“The High Court did not appreciate the trial court’s order that rejected Watali’s bail application after a detailed hearing. The High Court raised objections that the identity of the protected witnesses have not been revealed,” the official said.
As per the High Court’s bail order, the NIA described the protected witnesses as “Romeo, Alpha, Gamma, Pie, Potter, Harry.”
The NIA arrested 12 people including Watali in 2017 in the much-publicised terror funding case under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Besides Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, the agency filed a chargesheet against separatist leader Syed Shah Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah alias Fantoosh, Geelani’s personal assistant Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Javed Ahmad Bhat, Hurriyat Conference leaders Aftab Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Mohammad Akbar Khanday and Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal, photo journalist Kamran Yousuf, a hawker Javed Ahmad Bhat and Watali.
Yousuf was the first to be granted bail by a trial court on February 12 on grounds that the agency had not placed on record any single photo or video that he indulged in stone-pelting activities.
Yousuf’s counsel had told the court that the “protected witnesses” presented by the NIA were “deployed as security personnel in battalions of operation forces” and they were “interested witnesses.” Later, Javed Ahmad Bhat also walked out of jail on bail.
Securing bails under the UAPA are extremely rare. When asked if the bails were a setback for the agency, the official said, “the trial is yet to begin in the case. There is no question of the probe being derailed.”
