Srinagar: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday arrested Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Watali in an alleged money-laundering case.
The NIA said that Watali was held in connection with a case pertaining to funding of separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
“His arrest follows the searches conducted by the NIA on 16.08.2017 at multiple locations in Srinagar, Handwara, Kupwara and Baramulla belonging to the relatives and employees of Zahoor Watali,” the NIA statement said. It claimed recovery of “highly incriminating material” during the searches.
The NIA has been probing alleged funding of terror and subversive activities in Kashmir Valley after a national TV channel in May carried out a sting operation and showed three separatist leaders admitting on camera that they were receiving funding from Pakistan and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, co-founder of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and chief or amir of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah.
The fresh raids on Wednesday were mainly on the premises of close relations of businessman Watali. Two of them are officials of the Jammu and Kashmir government and the third a medical doctor, the NIA sources said. Watali whose business concerns are based in Dubai and London, besides Kashmir and Delhi, is one of the several persons whose residences and properties were raided by the NIA sleuths in June.
The initial raids were conducted in June at 23 places in Srinagar, Delhi and Haryana in connection with alleged hawala operations between Pakistan-based terror groups and Kashmiri separatists and the NIA had claimed seizure of at least '20 million cash, incriminating documents, letterheads of some militant outfits, laptops and mobile phones.
The NIA said, “Earlier, on June 3, 2017, the NIA had searched Zahoor Watali’s house in Srinagar and seized incriminating documents pertaining to several financial transactions and land deals. The property documents seized have shown huge amount of cash transactions in sale and purchase.” It also said that Watali would be produced before a special NIA judge at Patiala House Courts on Friday.
