The National Investigation Agency Thursday issued fresh summons to Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq to appear for questioning at the probe agency headquarters in connection with a militancy financing case, officials said.
According to the notice, the Mirwaiz has been asked toappear at the NIA headquarters in New Delhi on March 18, the agency officialssaid.
The NIA had on February 26 carried out searches at premisesof separatist leaders, including the Mirwaiz, in connection with the caserelated to alleged financing of militant and separatist groups in Jammu andKashmir.
The NIA team, accompanied by police and CRPF personnel,searched residences of some of the separatist leaders, including the Mirwaiz,Naseem Geelani and Ashraf Sehrai, the chairman of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.
The houses of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF)leader Yaseen Malik, Shabir Shah, Zaffar Bhat and Masarat Alam were alsoraided.
Barring the Mirwaiz and Sehrai, all other leaders werejailed for some time.
The NIA had questioned two maternal uncles of theMirwaiz—Maulvi Manzoor and Maulvi Shafat—and his close aides last year. BothManzoor and Shafat are retired senior government officers.
He had been asked to appear before the NIA on March 11 butthe Mirwaiz had expressed his inability to join the investigation in New Delhifearing for his security in view of “conditions of hostility”.
“Under the prevailing conditions of hostility wherein thereis a threat to the personal safety of my client, it becomes unwise for myclient to travel to Delhi,” counsel for the Mirwaiz, Aijaz Ahmad Dhar, had saidin a letter to the NIA.
If the NIA wants to question the Mirwaiz, it can do so in Srinagar and he is willing to cooperate as “he has nothing to hide”, the letter had said. The lawyer had said his client was not acquainted with the subject matter of the FIR referred to in the NIA’s notice and added that the notice to the separatist leader appears to have been issued on the basis of “fallacious assumptions and misinformation solely aimed at maligning the Mirwaiz”.