Eighteen months after the ban on the socio-religious group Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) in JandK, the National Investigative Agency (NIA) searched 56 locations in 14 districts in the Union Territory (UT) in connection with a terrorist financing case for reports of regrouping by the prohibited organization. Sources said the homes of former JeI bosses and heads of JeI FalaheAam Trust, a charity that operates around 100 schools in UT, were raided by NIA teams in the Soura, Nowgam, Bemina, Harwan, and Lal Bazaar areas of Srinagar.
The leader of the house of JeI, Dr. Mohammad Sultan Bhat, currently in Pakistan, was searched in the Soibugh area of central Budgam Kashmir. The houses of former IHE presidents in Budgam, Ganderbal, Kulgam, and Baramulla were also searched. In Shopian, once considered the centre of JeI, the home of Hamid Fayaz Ganies brother, who was Amir (Boss) JeI when it was banned in February 2019, was also searched.
An NIA spokesman said 56 locations in 14 UT districts had been searched, in Srinagar, Budgam, Ganderbal, Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora, Anantnag, Shopian, Pulwama, Kulgam, Ramban, Doda, Kishtwar and Rajouri districts. In February, the NIA recorded the case in a submission from the Interior Ministry in connection with the separatist and secessionist activities of the JeI, which was banned on February 28, 2019, by the law to prevent illegal activities. “Members of the organization raised funds domestically and internationally through donations, particularly in the form of zakat (donations), mowda and baitulmal (charity funds) that are supposed to promote charity and other charitable activities, but these funds are used for violent and secessionist purposes used activities”, the NIA said in a statement.
It has been alleged that the funds raised by the IHE were also channeled through well-organized networks of IHE cadres to banned groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The JeI has also motivated Kashmiri youth and recruited new members in JandK to participate in disruptive secessionist activities, the NIA added.