A Delhi court today sent Syed Shahid Yousuf, son of globally wanted terrorist Syed Salahuddin, to seven-day NIA custody in a 2011 terror funding case to enable the agency unearth the criminal conspiracy.
The National Investigation Agency(NIA), in its plea seeking custodial interrogation of Yousuf, said it needed to unravel the entire criminal conspiracy and establish his link with prescribed terrorist organisation of the Hizb-ul- Mujahedin (HuM).
Yousuf, arrested yesterday by the NIA, was produced before District and Sessions Judge Poonam A Bamba, who granted the NIA his custody till November 1.
“Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case and submissions made in the application, to enable the NIA to unearth the criminal conspiracy and link of the accused with prescribed terrorist organisation of the Hizb-ul-Mujahedin, Syed Shahid Yousuf is remanded to police custody till November 1,” the judge said.
In its application, the NIA submitted that the case was registered on the basis of information regarding funds from Pakistan being sent to Jammu and Kashmir through hawala channels via Delhi for funding terrorism.
The counsel for Yousuf, however, opposed the application and claimed he was falsely implicated in the case.
The agency submitted that certain telephone calls were intercepted which revealed that a member of the Pakistan-based banned terrorist group HuM was sending huge amount of funds to the seccessionists and terrorists of Jammu and Kashmir through Delhi.
The NIA had in 2011 arrested accused persons Ghulam Mohd Bhat and others with Rs 21.20 lakh, it said, adding that Yousuf was “one of the several Indian contacts of Bhat” who had been in telephonic contact with him for receiving money transfer codes.
It was submitted by the agency that Yousuf’s involvement was found in collecting funds from a terrorist outfit in Saudi Arabia as well as from other accused on directions of his father Mohd Yousuf Shah alias Syed Salahuddin, self-styled supreme commander of the Hizb-Ul-Mujahiddin.
Syed Salahuddin was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US Department of State in June this year.
The NIA has claimed that so far Yousuf has received a total of nearly Rs 4.5 lakh through eight international wire transfers.
The agency has so far filed two charge sheets against six people including Bhat, a close aide of pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mohammed Siddiq Ganai, Ghulam Jeelani Liloo and Farooq Ahmed Dagga.
The NIA had also registered two other cases related to terror funding — one in November 2011 and the other in May this year. It had filed a charge sheet against 10 people including Salahuddin in the April 2011 case.
In the recent case, the NIA arrested 10 people including some close relatives and aides of Geelani.