J&K Businessman’s Property Attached In Terror Funding Case

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Monday attached Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmed Watali’s immovable property in Haryana’s Gurugram in connection with its probe into the terror funding case in Jammu and Kashmir.

“We have attached a property, worth Rs 1.3 crore, of Watali in Gurugram,” a senior ED official told , adding that was done under the sections of Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The ED has registered a case of money laundering against several separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir based on the FIR filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in May 2017.

According to ED officials, Watali, who was arrested in August 2017 by the NIA, “acted as fund manager to many persons to park the money received from across the border” to stoke unrest in the state.
Watali was granted bail by the Delhi High Court in September 2018.

The NIA had on January 18 last year filed a charge sheet against 12 persons including Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, seven Kashmiri separatist leaders and others in the case of alleged terror funding in the Kashmir Valley.

It had in July 2017 arrested Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah.

Altaf Ahmad Shah is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan. Shahid-ul-Islam is an aide of moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Khandey is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat. (IANS)