NIA to produce seven arrested Hurriyat leaders before Patiala House court today

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) will produce seven Hurriyat leaders in Patiala house court on Tuesday.  The separatist leaders were arrested by NIA on Monday in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley.

Following the arrest, The separatist leadership has called a bandh on Tuesday.

Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was also arrested by the NIA.

Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who had put him in preventive detention immediately after the festival of Eid earlier this month.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from the Valley, officials engaged in the operation said.

The NIA had also arrested Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, they said.

The others arrested are Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate', they said.

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The houses of those arrested had been raided by NIA sleuths last month.

Shah is perceived as an influential force in the Tehrek- e-Hurriyat.

Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Dukhtaran-e-Milat.

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