Second son of globally wanted terrorist Syed Salahuddin was today arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with a 2011 terror funding case for allegedly receiving money from his father, the probe agency said.
Armed with a non-bailable warrant from a Delhi court, the NIA officials, accompanied by the state police and CRPF, placed 48-year-old Syed Ahmed Shakeel under arrest at Rambagh locality in the city when he was on his way to Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Science where works as a senior laboratory assistant, the NIA spokesman said.
During investigation, involvement of Shakeel had also surfaced in raising, receiving, collecting funds from terrorist organisation through its active cadres from Saudi Arabia, the spokesman claimed.
The spokesman said he had received money through Western Union several times which were sent by absconding chargesheeted accused Aijaz Ahmad Bhat alias Aijaz Maqbool Bhat.
The probe showed that Shakeel, eldest son of Syed Salahuddin, self-styled chief of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terror group, had received funds from various countries from the operatives of Hizb-ul- Mujahideen.
The accused was summoned by the NIA for questioning but he did not appear prompting the agency to secure a non-bailable warrant (NBW) issued against him from the NIA Special Court.
He was brought to the national capital and would be produced before the NIA Special Court for seeking his police custody for custodial interrogation.
He is the second son of Salahuddin who has been arrested by the NIA in connection with the case. Earlier this year, his another son, Shahid, who was working in the agricultural department of the Jammu and Kashmir government, was arrested in the same case.
The NIA alleged Shakeel used to receive funds through a US-based international wire transfer company from Aijaz Ahmed Bhat, another accused in the case who is absconding and based in Saudi Arabia
The case, registered by the NIA in April 2011, relates to transfer of money from Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir through hawala channels via Delhi, which the agency believed was used in funding terrorism and secessionist activities.
The NIA has so far filed two charge sheets against six people including G M Bhat, a close aide of pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mohammed Siddiq Ganai, Ghulam Jeelani Liloo and Farooq Ahmed Dagga. All four are in judicial custody.
Two others -- Mohammed Maqbool Pandit and Bhat -- were also charge sheeted by the NIA but they are absconding. An Interpol Red Corner notice has been issued against them.
In this case, so far, three accused persons Mohammad Sidiq Ganai, Ghulam Jeelani Liloo and Farooq Ahmed Dagga have been convicted after they pleaded guilty.
Shakeel's father Mohammed Yusuf Shah -- better known as Syed Salahuddin -- was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US Department of State.
Besides heading terror outfit Hizb-ul Mujahideen, he is the chairman of the United Jehad Council (UJC), a conglomerate of terrorist outfits operating in the Kashmir Valley.
The NIA had also registered two others cases related to terror funding -- one in November 2011 and the other in May this year.
The agency had filed a charge sheet against 10 people including Syed Salahuddin in the April 2011 case.
In the recent case, the NIA arrested 10 people including some close relatives and aides of Geelani.
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