Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Special Investigation Agency (SIA) on Tuesday searched a house here in connection with a “terror financing” case involving a former minister, officials said.
The raid was conducted at the house of a policeman, presently posted in Kashmir, in the Belicharana area in the outskirts of the city, the officials said.
They said some digital devices were seized during the searches which were conducted as a follow-up in the ongoing investigation in a terror-funding case involving former minister Jatinder Singh alias “Babu Singh”.
Singh, chairman of Nature-Mankind Friendly Global Party, was arrested on April 09, 2022, within days of going underground following the arrest of his worker Mohammad Shareef Shah, a resident of south Kashmir’s Kokernag, along with Rs 6.90 lakh hawala money in Jammu.
The former minister along with two others was subsequently chargesheeted by the SIA in September, 2022.
Mohammad Sharief Chechi, a key-accused wanted in the case, was arrested by the SIA Jammu from the border township of Uri in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district in September last year
After taking over the investigation of the case, the official said the SIA busted the modus operandi adopted by the accused including Chechi who used to collect narcotics from across the Line of Control to generate proceeds for terror-funding.
The case was initially registered at the Gandhi Nagar Police Station in Jammu following the arrest of Shah on specific information that “he along with the former minister were working under the directions of Pakistan’s ISI and their agents to fund Jammu-based separatists to carry out subversive activities”, the officials said.
They said the investigations revealed that “there was a well organised drug syndicate including Mohammad Rafiq Najar and Farooq Ahmad Naikoo operating from Dubai who were infusing narcotics into the Indian territory for generating terror funds, to fuel subversive activities challenging the sovereignty, integrity and security of India.”
Further investigation into aspects of cross-LoC operation of this narco-smuggling and terror funding syndicate is ongoing at SIA Jammu, the official said.
