SRINAGAR: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday attached two properties belonging to jailed separatist leader Ayaz Akbar, a confidant of deceased Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, in a terror funding case.
The sleuths attached a two-storeyed house and land measuring 9 kanals in Shalteng area of Srinagar, based on a May 31 order of a special NIA court in Delhi.
Muhammad Akbar Khanday alias Ayaz Akbar was arrested by NIA in July 2018 and is currently lodged in Tihar Jail, facing trial in the terror financing case registered in May 2017.
On Monday, the probe agency had attached 17 properties of jailed Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali in connection with the same case.
Khanday was the spokesperson and media advisor of the hardline Hurriyat faction led by Geelani. Booked under the UAPA, he is accused of raising and collecting funds from within India and abroad through illegal channels and using the same to sponsor and promote secessionist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir, a NIA spokesperson said. He was operating in close association with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the NIA investigations revealed.
The case relates to terrorist and secessionist activities being carried out in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan-backed proscribed terror outfits, using Hurriyat as a front.
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik was sentenced to life imprisonment in the case last year while several others are undergoing trial.
The NIA has so far filed chargesheets against 17 persons in the case, including Pakistan-based terror masterminds Hafeez Saeed and Syed Salahuddin.