The National Investigation Agency on Thursday raided six non-governmental organisations and trusts in Delhi and Srinagar in a terror funding case, ANI reported. The raids were a continuation of the agency’s searches at 10 locations in Jammu and Kashmir and one in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
The non-profits searched by the agency were Falah-e-Aam Trust, Charity Alliance, Human Welfare Foundation, JK Yateem Foundation, Salvation Movement and J&K Voice of Victims. Charity Alliance and Human Welfare Foundation are based in Delhi, while the rest are in Srinagar, NDTV reported.
Former Delhi Minority Commission chief Zafarul-Islam Khan is the chairperson of Charity Alliance, according to the news channel.
The NIA had on Wednesday said that it was carrying out the raids in a case related to “so-called NGOs and trusts raising funds in India and abroad in the name of charitable activities and then using those funds for carrying out secessionist and separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir”.
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It added that a new case was registered based on credible information that the non-governmental organisations are using funds for terrorist activities.
The locations raided on Wednesday included the offices of English newspaper Greater Kashmir and NGO Athroot, the home of human rights activist Khurram Parvez, and a houseboat named HB Hilton in the Dal Lake, IANS reported. Officials from the National Investigation Agency were assisted by the local police and the Central Reserve Police Forces.
The premises of Parvez’s associates Parvez Ahmad Bukhari, Parvez Ahmad Matta and Bengaluru-based associate Swati Sheshadri and Parveena Ahanger, the chairperson of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons were also searched. Several “incriminating documents and electronic devices” have been seized, the NIA said.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had criticised the raids and said that it was another example of the government’s “vicious crackdown” on freedom of expression and dissent. “Sadly, NIA has become BJP’s [the Bharatiya Janata Party’s] pet agency to intimidate & browbeat those who refuse to fall in line,” she added.