NEW DELHI: Recent National Investigation Agency (NIA) action against Hurriyat leaders has triggered a rift in the separatist camp.
“The Hurriyat leaders are haraamkhor (freebooters) and are in nexus with the Lashkar-e-Taiba. They radicalise innocent youths in PoK who are invited to the Line of Control (LoC) and are killed by the Indian security forces. The Hurriyat leaders themselves do not want the Kashmir issue to be resolved,” Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader in PoK, Mohammad Qari, said at a rally, the video of which was recently posted on Facebook.
The NIA has so far gathered evidence of funding from Pakistan through the cross-LoC trade route. The probe has revealed that some traders from Jammu and Kashmir were used by the arrested Hurriyat leadership to avail funding from Pakistan.
The probe has further revealed that Pakistani agencies also routed money to Jammu and Kashmir via Dubai through the hawala route. In addition, the agency is suspecting that some women members could have also been used for funding by crossing over the LoC with imitation jewellery and coming back with gold ornaments.
The agencies also suspects that funding to the Hurriyat leadership could also have been pumped through the cotton yarn trade from South India and a few other states like Madhya Pradesh. Indians have invested significantly in Pakistan in the textile sector and dominate the trade, a senior Intelligence official said.
Intelligence sources said the position of the leaders of the Hurriyat camp will further get eroded due to the political instability in Pakistan following the sacking of Prime Minister Sharif by the Supreme Court.
While hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani is backed by the Pakistan army, moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is backed by the Pakistan People’s Party. Amid the uncertainty in Pakistan, the two factions will be further hit even as the NIA seeks to unravel the modus operandi of the Hurriyat leadership, their nexus with Pakistan-sponsored terror groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad.