agencies
New Delhi, July 31: The National Investigating Agency (NIA), the country’s premier anti-terror agency, has recovered a detailed protest calendar issued and signed by Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The ‘protest calendar’ points to the role of separatists in organising events in tandem with handlers across the border, in Pakistan, which resulted in widespread violence in Kashmir.
The agency has unearthed documents that list dates when protests and other activities related to civil unrest were to be carried out in the Valley following the gunning down of Hizbul Mujahideen leader Burhan Wani.
The ‘protest calendar’, recovered from Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah ‘Funtoosh’, establishes how Hurriyat systematically stoked violence that led to hundreds of injuries and numerous deaths in clashes between stone pelters and security forces.
NIA investigations suggest that the protests, aimed at spreading radicalism, involved local clerics as well as separatist cadres and activists of Opposition parties and were reportedly funded by Hurriyat along with Pakistani agencies.
For instance, Geelani called for assembling and occupying local chowks and centres in the vicinity of mohallas, villages and localities and playing of Islamic and azadi taranas (songs) in masjids August 6, 2016.
The NIA, in the meantime, raided and questioned Devinder Singh Behal, chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Social Peace Forum (JKSPF) and a member of Hurriyat’s legal cell Sunday. According to sources, JKSPF was a constituent of All Party Hurriyat Conference’s Geelani faction and Behal was closely associated with the latter.
NIA spokesperson Inspector General Alok Mittal revealed Behal was “a close associate of a top Hurriyat leader and regularly attends funerals of militants”. Investigation into Behal’s activities revealed that he was a “courier,” as he is suspected to be involved in routing funds to separatist leaders from Pakistani based handlers, Mittal said.
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