The National Investigation Agency (NIA) today carried out searches at 10 places, including the premises of a local daily in Srinagar, in connection with a fresh terror funding probe.
These NGOs, the NIA said, were receiving money from undisclosed donors which was then being used to fund terror activities, according to a PTI report. Besides Srinagar, the raids were carried in Bandipora and Bengaluru.
The raided premises include the residence and office of Khurram Parvez, Co-ordinator of J&K Coalition of Civil Society, his associates Parvez Ahmad Bukhari, Parvez Ahmad Matta, and Swati Sheshadri, an NIA release said today. This is besides the premises of Parveena Ahanger, Chairperson of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons and the offices of NGO Athrout and the Greater Kailash Trust.
Several incriminating documents and electronic devices have been seized, the release said.
The NIA was assisted by the local police and paramilitary personnel in carrying out the raids.
Mehbooba Mufti, the chief of the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party called the action a vicious crack down on dissent.
In another tweet, she alleged that the government of India wants media publications to write op-eds about diabetes and yoga instead of what she termed the “plunder of J&K’s land & resources”.
The PDP chief was referring to the notification of a law on Tuesday by the Central government, allowing urban land and immovable property in Jammu and Kashmir to be purchased by residents of any state. Earlier, only residents of Jammu and Kashmir were allowed to purchase land in the state.
The scrapping of the state’s special powers under Article 370 of the Constitution last year, alongside the state’s bifurcation into two Union Territories, paved the way for this change in land law.
The move set off a stream of protests from the local political parties.