Continuing its crackdown on separatists in Kashmir, the NIA on Tuesday took custody of Masarat Alam Bhat, the alleged kingpin of stone pelting, along with Shabir Shah, chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, and Asiya Andrabi, the head of women's secessionist group Dukhtaren-e-Millat, to question them about their role in terror funding. The National Investigation Agency brought Bhat, Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim League, to Delhi on Monday night from a prison in Jammu and Kashmir where he was lodged under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
On Tuesday, he was produced before Additional Sessions Judge Rakesh Syal who remanded him in 10-day custody of the NIA. Bhat was under detention for his role in triggering protests and serial stone pelting in Kashmir Valley in 2010 for several months in which 110 protesters were killed. Along with Bhat, the court also remanded Shah and Andrabi to NIA custody till June 14 in connection with a terror funding case. Their custody was sought for interrogation in connection with a terror
funding case which the agency had registered in May 2017. Prior to this, the NIA had brought JKLF leader Yasin Malik here in connection with the case.In the preceding months, the anti-terror investigating agency had arrested several separatist leaders including Aftab Hilali Shah, alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar, alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat, alias Peer Saifullah.
