NIA raids cross-LoC traders’ homes: Searches carried out in terror funding case

SRINAGAR: National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday raided several locations in the Valley including offices and homes of four Kashmiri businessmen dealing in trade across the Line of Control (LoC) which remains suspended since April this year.

The local police and  Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) assisted the NIA sleuths during raids, which were carried out in north-western Baramulla district, the witnesses said.

Those whose premises were searched include Tanveer Ahmad, Asif Lone, Tariq Ahmad and Bilal Bhat who have been associated with the cross-LoC trade. Earlier similar raids were earlier conducted by the NIA in Srinagar and southern Pulwama district.

The official sources said that these raids are being carried out in connection with the investigations being done by the NIA into the alleged terror funding. They said that the agency is probing all aspects of funding of separatist leaders and militants and use of these funds which were obtained also through cross-LoC trade in fuelling the unrest in the Valley.  The agency has, since it began the probe in May 2017, arrested several separatist leaders and activists, a businessman and a lawyer and most of them are presently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.

On April 18 this year, the Union Home Ministry suspended the cross-LoC trade indefinitely saying the government has received reports that the trade routes being “misused by some Pakistan based elements”.

A statement issued by ministry had said that the LoC trade through both Uri-Chakothi and Chakan-da-Bagh-Rawlakote corridors has been suspended pending “putting into place of a stricter regulatory regime”. The ministry order also said that the move “is to ensure that only bonafide trade takes place for the benefit of the people of Jammu and Kashmir through this mechanism”.

The duty-free barter trade across the LoC from two points- Uri and Muzaffarabad and Poonch and Rawlakote was initiated as a confidence building measure between India and Pakistan in October 2008. But from day one, it was marred in many controversies and was on many times hit also by active hostilities breaking out between the armies of India and Pakistan along the 747-km long de facto border.

Hilal Turkey, president of Salamabad Cross-LoC Traders’ Union, while reacting to these raids said, “The official agencies have conducted such raids before also. We’re extending our full cooperation to the NIA. If something wrong has happened it should be thoroughly probed but no one should be harassed unnecessarily...there should be no humiliation of anyone”. End it