SRI NAGAR: Top Kashmiri separatist leader and cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq again defied National Investigation Agency (NIA) by not travelling to the agency’s headquarters in New Delhi on Monday for questioning regarding a separating and terror funding case.
For the second time in two weeks, Mirwaiz did not travel to Delhi to face questioning at NIA headquarters.
On March 15, the NIA had issued its second summons to Mirwaiz asking him to present himself before NIA headquarters in New Delhi on March 18 for questioning in the case, which was registered in July 2017.
The second summons to Mirwaiz was issued by the NIA after he refused to travel to Delhi for questioning on March 11, citing security reasons.
A spokesman for Mirwaiz said the senior separatist leader has sent a reply to the NIA through his counsel.
“Mirwaiz has reiterated that he is willing to cooperate in the matter but sought to shift of the venue for examination from Delhi to Srinagar, as the concerns that he voiced over travelling to Delhi that he expressed through his counsel, continue to persist,” he said.
The spokesman said Mirwaiz’s counsel has written to that NIA saying that on several occasions, the sleuths had questioned people at Humhama in central Kashmir’s Budgam district.“We see no reason why Mirwaiz cannot be questioned in Srinagar,” Mirwaiz’s counsel has written.
At least eight separatist leaders, including the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani and a leading businessman, were arrested by NIA during its probe into the terror funding case.
All are presently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.