NIA Attaches Hizbul Chief Syed Salahuddin’s Sons’ Properties In J&K

New Delhi: Two properties in Kashmir registered in the names of two sons of Syed Mohammed Yusuf Shah, aka Syed Salahuddin, the leader of the terrorist organisation Hizbul Mujahideen and a designated terrorist, have been attached by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

“The immovable properties of Shahid Yusuf and Syed Ahmed Shakeel, located in Kashmir – in Soibugh Tehsil, Distt. Budgam and Nursing Garh, Mohalla Ram Bagh, have been attached under section 33(1) of UA(P) Act,” the agency said in a statement Monday.

Currently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail are Yusuf and Shakeel, who are charged with allegedly receiving foreign funding from Salahuddin’s associates and other overground Hizbul Mujahideen members. Shakeel was arrested in 2018 while Yusuf was in 2017.

Salahuddin, who is thought to have fled to Pakistan in 1993, was one of 18 people the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) identified as terrorists in 2020.

“Besides instigating and operationalising militant activities in India, primarily in Kashmir valley, Syed Salahuddin has been raising funds and routing finances to India through trade routes, hawala channels, and international money transfer channels for furthering the terrorist activities of HM (Hizbul) cadres,” the statement read.

In November 2011, the NIA launched an investigation into alleged criminal plots intended to finance terror organisations and their purported supporters in J&K. The Delhi Police Special Cell carried out the first investigation after a case was filed in this respect in January 2011, but the NIA eventually took over the investigation.

In September 2020, a parcel of land with a house that belonged to the father of one of the attackers was also attached in the same case, according to the statement.