SRINAGAR ARMS SEIZURE | NIA attaches property of key conspirator

Srinagar, Jan 6: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Saturday attached a residential house of a key conspirator in an arms seizure case here in Srinagar.

The house is located in Khan Colony in the city’s Chanapora area.

“The property of accused Aamir Mushtaq Ganaie, identified as one of the masterminds in the case RC-4/22/NIA/JMU, was attached on Saturday as ‘proceeds of terrorism’ by an NIA team,” the NIA officials said.

They said that the accused used the proceeds of terror for conspiring and committing terror crimes against the country.

The probe agency said that Ganaie and his associates were cadres of The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit.

“They were associated with their Pakistan-based handlers or commanders of the LeT,” it said.

The NIA said that the case was connected to a larger conspiracy related to drone-dropping of weapons and money by a Pakistan-based module operating in J&K.

It said that the kingpin in the case, Faisal Muneer, was earlier arrested and charge-sheeted by the NIA, which found him to be involved in receiving weapon consignments sent from across the border by Sajjad Gul alias Hamza.

The NIA said that after receiving the weapons, Muneer used to deliver them in Srinagar to Ganaie, who further distributed them to active cadres or terrorists of the TRF to carry out targeted killings to spread terror.

It said that the accused were also engaged in radicalising, motivating, and instigating vulnerable youth to join TRF or LeT and other terror outfits in Kashmir.

“Besides arms and ammunition, the NIA investigators had recovered several incriminating materials, including chats about terror funds, from the mobile phones of the accused persons,” the probe agency said.

It has been established that the accused had been carrying out terrorist activities for a long time, thereby threatening the security, integrity, and sovereignty of India.

The agency had taken over the case initially registered by the Police Station Chanapora in May 2022 and re-registered it at the NIA’s Jammu branch office on June 18, 2022.

“The NIA intends to intensify its efforts to dismantle all terror networks and demolish their support infrastructure by attaching and seizing their properties in the coming days,” the NIA officials said.