Kashmir: NIA probe into terror funding may get renewed push

Following the appointment of the interlocutor, the agency has hardly called anyone for questioning in the case from Kashmir. Importantly, the chargesheet has mentioned names of all top separatist leaders such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik as people who have been allegedly pushing for secession and fuelling unrest but has stopped short of naming them as accused. The agency plans to put them in the dock in its next chargesheet, sources said.

According to the investigators, a frustration had begun to seep in among those probing the case after Sharma was appointed interlocutor and the NIA case was put on the backburner as the government was reaching out to the separatists.

“For us, a clear policy works. If you want to talk, don’t engage us. If you want to go after those funding terror, let us take the case till the end. When you wield the baton and dangle the carrot at the same time, the case suffers,” an NIA investigator said.

Notably, the 1,200-page NIA chargesheet shows that the agency has relied heavily on “open source” information on the accused, to press its charges. Even its case against two stone-pelters — one of them a photojournalist — it has chargesheeted is low on evidence. “This was not the final chargesheet. Work is pending on a lot of fronts,” an NIA officer said.