New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has charge sheeted one more accused in a 2020 narco-terrorism case relating to seizure of 17 kgs of heroin along with cash in Jammu & Kashmir.
A statement issued by NIA said that one Syed Saleem Jahangir Andrabi @ Saleem Andrabi has been charged under relevant sections of NDPS Act, IPC and UA(P) Act in the third supplementary chargesheet filed by NIA before the agency’s Special Court in Jammu. The accused, a resident of district Kupwara, was arrested in July 2024 after evading arrest for the last four years in the case RC-03/2020/NIA/JMU.
With this, a total of 16 accused have so far been charge sheeted in the case, in which investigation is continuing, the statement said.
It said that Handwara police had registered the case originally in June 2020 when, during checking of vehicles at Kairo Bridge, accused Abdul Momin Peer was intercepted while coming from Baramulla in his Hyundai CRETA vehicle. A search of the vehicle had led to the seizure of around Rs. 2 crore in cash and 2 kgs of heroin. Peer’s questioning had led to further recovery of 15 kg of heroin and Rs. 1.15 crore in cash.
It said that NIA, which had taken over the case in June 2020, found during investigation that accused Syed Saleem Jahangir Andrabi @ Saleem Andrabi was part of a deep-rooted conspiracy for procuring and selling narcotics drugs and generating funds in J&K and other parts of India. He was working in close association with operatives of Pak-based banned terrorist outfits, Lashkar-E-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM). The funds so generated were used for furtherance of terrorist activity in the UT of J&K through a network of over ground workers (OGWs), as per the NIA investigations.
