WEB DESK/ NEW DELH
National Investigation Agency, NIA today arrested seven people including Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley.
Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, which had put him in
preventive detention immediately after the festival of Eid earlier this month.
According to reports Geelani’s close aides Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar and Peer Saifullah were also arrested by the NIA from the Valley.
NIA also arrested Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. The Officials said, the others arrested are Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Nayeem Khan of the Hurriyat’s Geelani faction and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias ‘Bitta Karate’. The houses of those arrested had been raided by NIA sleuths last month.
Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen and Dukhtaran-e-Milat.
The NIA had recovered account books, 2 crore rupees in cash and letterheads of banned terror groups, including of the LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen, from the raids.