Islamic seminary head among six detained in NIA raids in Jammu and Kashmir

SRINAGAR: A day after the J&K administration sacked 11 employees for alleged anti-India activities, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday picked up six people — including the head of a Darul Uloom-affiliated seminary — during raids in Srinagar and Anantnag districts as part of a concerted crackdown on online radicalisation of youth by the banned Islamic State.
Two sons of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Muhammad Yusuf Shah, alias Syed Salahuddin, were among the 11 fired on Saturday on the basis of the NIA’s investigation into an alleged terror funding case, the government said.
The raids that followed a day later were carried out simultaneously across seven locations by joint teams of the NIA, CRPF and J&K Police. In Srinagar’s Dalal Mohalla, NIA sleuths raided a seminary — Siraj-ul Uloom — and detained its head, Adnaan Ahmad Nadvi, besides seizing a laptop, bank statements and other documents. Darul Uloom, under which the seminary supposedly functions, is in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoband.
In Anantnag, an NIA team headed by Dinesh Gupta carried out raids in Pushroo, Sunsooma, and Achabal villages and detained five others — Sunsooma’s Javaid Ahmad Mir, an MBA graduate; Achabal’s Umar Bhat; Ovais Ahmad Bhat, Tanveer Ahmad Bhat, and Zeeshan Ameen Malik, the official said. Electronic gadgets including mobile phones, tablets, laptops, hard disks; bank statements and other documents, besides T-shirts bearing the ISIS logo, were seized. At the time of filing this report, similar raids were underway in two Baramulla locations, an NIA spokesperson confirmed.
The proscribed outfit had launched a campaign on cyberspace, supplemented by on-ground terror financing activities, the spokesperson said, adding that the agency had registered a case in this regard on June 29 this year under relevant sections of the IPC and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
“IS terrorists operating from various conflict zones along with ISIS cadres in India, by assuming pseudo- online identities, have created a network wherein ISIS-related propaganda material is disseminated for radicalizing and recruiting members to the fold of ISIS,” the spokesperson said. An India-centric online propaganda magazine called “Voice of Hind” was published monthly to brainwash youth by projecting a skewed narrative of imagined injustices in India to feel a sense of alienation and communal hatred.
Last Friday, a special NIA court in Delhi framed charges against 12 accused, including Hizb chief Syed Salahuddin and United Jihad Council chairman Ghulam Nabi Khan, in a 2011 terror funding case under relevant sections of the IPC and UAPA, the NIA spokesperson said. The probe had revealed that from 2004-2011, illegal funding was made to the tune of over Rs 80 crore from Pakistan to Hizb to fuel terror activities in India.