NIA summons independent Jammu and Kashmir MLA Sheikh Abdur Rashid for questioning in militancy funding

Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Rashid Engineer, is the first mainstream politician to be summoned by the National Investigation Agency in the case.

The National Investigation Agency had registered a case on May 30 against separatist and secessionist leaders who have allegedly been conniving with active militants. (File | AFP)

SRINAGAR: After questioning Kashmiri separatist leaders and traders, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has issued a summon to the valley state's independent legislator Er Sheikh Abdur Rashid for questioning in its ongoing probe into militancy and separatists funding.

Officials said NIA has asked the firebrand MLA to appear for questioning at investigation agency’s headquarters in New Delhi on October 3.

Rashid is an independent MLA from Langate in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district. He is the second time MLA from the constituency. He won Assembly election in 2008 and 2014 polls.

He is the first mainstream politician to be summoned by the NIA for questioning in the above case.

Rashid, who has been calling for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, termed the NIA summon as “politically motivated”.

“I will continue to call spade a spade whatsoever it may cost. My life is like an open book and my people who have voted me second time as their representative are the best judge to judge my activities,” he said.

Rashid said before “dragging” every Kashmiri to New Delhi through NIA, the government should investigate custodial killings, forced labour in border areas and atrocities and torture on civilians.

The NIA sleuths are questioning Kashmiri traders body president Mohammad Yasin Khan and Kashmir University research scholar Aala Fazili in its New Delhi headquarters daily since Monday (September 25).

The hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani’s two sons Naeem Geelani and Naseem Geelani have also been questioned by the NIA and are under the scanner of the investigation agency.

The NIA also questioned senior lawyer and Kashmir Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom. The lawyer has claimed that he has been given clean chit by the investigation agency.

The NIA is probing the militancy and separatist funding in Jammu and Kashmir and has so far arrested 11 people. Among the arrested people include seven separatists including son-in-law of Geelani Altaf Ahmad Shah, leading Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, two youth of south Kashmir including a photo-journalist Kamran Yousuf and a Sikh lawyer of Jammu Devender Singh Behl.

The NIA had registered a case on May 30 this year against separatist leaders for acting in connivance with militants of Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other groups and woman separatist group Dukhtaran-e-Millat for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means including hawala for funding separatist and militant activities in Jammu and Kashmir.

The NIA raids and arrests of separatist leaders took place after three separatists Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan and Gazi Javed Baba had in an expose by TV news channel India Today purportedly acknowledged of receiving money from Pakistan government, Hafiz Saeed and militant groups for fomenting unrest in Valley and creating chaos by burning schools, government institutions, panchayat ghars and police stations.