While the nation was busy celebrating the IAF attack on JeM terrorist camps, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was busy furthering the country’s fight against terrorism. In matters regarding terror funding, the National Investigation Agency raided the positions of several separatist leaders in Srinagar on Tuesday. The NIA raided a total of seven places, including the hideouts of several separatist leaders. The raid included swooping the hideout of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik wherein NIA officers along with the state police cordoned off Malik’s residence at around 7.30 a.m. Apart from him, the raid included hideouts of separatist leaders Shabbir Shah, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Mohammad Ashraf Khan, Masarat Alam, Jaffar Akbar and Nasim Geelani, in which a huge number of documents were recovered.
Several documents such as bank related documents as well as a recommendation letter for the Pakistani visa have been recovered. Moreover, the letter head of different terrorist organizations also recovered. In addition to these, in this raid, many documents of property, receipt of financial transactions and visa to get admission in Pakistani educational institutions were also recovered. Apart from this, high speed internet communication setup has also been recovered from the house of separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
The separatists in a response have called for a two-day Kashmir ban against the raids of the NIA here on several of its leaders. Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) has called for complete closure on Wednesday and Thursday against the threat of NIA and Article 35-A. This article gives special rights to the native residents of the state. The Supreme Court has to hear several petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Article 35-A this week.
The IAF attack coupled with the raid indicates India’s policy of absolute intolerance towards terrorism. Terrorist sympathizers and Kashmiri separatists now need to beware. People of Jammu and Kashmir need to be coerced into adopting a non-violent path of existence. The country’s safety is of utmost priority and till the time that it isn’t achieved, such raids and attacks to eliminate terrorism will continue till the threats cease to exist.