NIA chargesheets Pakistani national, Kupwara resident

Srinagar, Nov 15: The National Investigation Agency has chargesheeted two accused Dilawar Iqbal – a close aide of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi – and Kupwara-resident Muhammad Ubaid Malik for conspiring to disturb the peace and communal harmony of Jammu and Kashmir by attacking security forces.

The NIA officials said Muhammad Dilawar Iqbal of Abbaspur in PoK who goes by many aliases including Maaz Khan Kashmiri and Azad Kashmiri, delivered incendiary speeches to incite youth in Jammu and Kashmir to conduct terrorist acts.

In the chargesheet filed in a special court in Jammu, the NIA said that the accused Dilawar Iqbal was a close associate of Masood Azhar and had indoctrinated and motivated Ubaid Malik to join the JeM ranks.

The NIA said that the Dilawar Iqbal was motivating Kashmiri youth as part of a larger conspiracy hatched by proscribed terrorist organisations and their affiliates to carry out terrorist activities in the region.

“Dilwar would incite youth having a terror background to pursue Jehad by sharing with them inflammatory audio clips and videos as well as images of Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi, showing the latter preaching radical Islam.

“He would also send videos related to encounters in the Kashmir valley and would provoke the youth to pick up arms,” NIA said.

The agency has been probing the terror conspiracy case since June 21, 2022, after taking it up on a suo motu basis.

The case pertains to the conspiracy hatched by Pakistan-based terrorist organisations to “unleash violent terrorist attacks in J&K with sticky bombs, IEDs, and small arms” to carry out terrorist attacks and violence in J&K.

“It involves radicalisation of local youth and mobilisation of Over Ground Workers (OGWs) of newly floated terrorist groups such as – The Resistance Front (TRF), United Liberation Front Jammu and Kashmir (ULFJ&K), Mujahideen Gazwat-ul-Hind (MGH), Jammu and Kashmir Freedom Fighters (JKFF), Kashmir Tigers, PAAF, and others.

“These outfits are affiliated to proscribed terrorist outfits like Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Al-Badr, and Al-Qaeda,” the anti-terror agency said.