New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said Tuesday it has attached over a dozen assets in Jammu and Kashmir in a terror financing case against Pakistan-based terrorist and chief of the globally banned Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Syed Salahuddin.
The central probe agency issued a provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to attach 13 properties, worth Rs 1.22 crore, in the state.
The ED said the properties belonged to Mohammad Shafi Shah, a resident of Bandipora, and six other residents of Jammu and Kashmir, who allegedly worked for the terror outfit.
“Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the most active terror outfit in Kashmir, has been responsible for funding terrorist and secessionist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Headed by Syed Salahuddin, its self-styled commander based out of Rawalpindi in Pakistan, it funds terrorism on Indian soil through monies organised by a trust called JKART (Jammu and Kashmir Affectees Relief Trust) in alleged connivance with the ISI and other Pakistan-based entities,” the ED said in a statement.
It also stated that the probe found that ‘terror funds’ were being sent to India through the hawala. “The funds then were being distributed to the next of kin of HuM terrorists, active and dead,” the ED informed.
The NIA had arrested Salahuddin’s son Syed Shahid Yousuf in this case in 2017 and the J& K government had later suspended him from service as he was working in the state agriculture department. Shah and three others are currently lodged in the Tihar jail in the national capital in connection with this terror funding case, the ED said.
It should be stated here that the US government had in August, 2017 designated HuM as a ‘foreign terrorist organisation’.
PTI