Weapons seizure case: NIA attaches residential property in Srinagar

Srinagar, Jan 6 (PTI) The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday attached a residential house of a key conspirator in an arms seizure case here in Jammu and Kashmir, the agency said.

The house is located in Khan Colony in the city’s Chanapora area, it said.

“The property of accused Aamir Mushtaq Ganaie, identified as one of the masterminds in the case RC-4/22/NIA/JMU, was attached today as ‘proceeds of terrorism’ by an NIA team,” the agency said in a statement.

The accused used the proceeds of terror for conspiring and committing terror crimes against the nation, it added.

According to the central agency, Ganaie and his associates were cadres of ‘The Resistance Front (TRF)’, an offshoot of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit. They were associated with their Pakistan-based handlers or commanders of the LeT, it added.

The case is connected to a larger conspiracy related to drone-dropping of weapons and money by a Pakistan-based module operating in J&K, the agency said.

The kingpin in the case, Faisal Muneer, was earlier arrested and charge-sheeted by the NIA, which found him to be involved in receiving weapon consignments sent from across the border by Sajjad Gul alias Hamza, the statement said.

The NIA said that after receiving the weapons, Muneer used to deliver them in Srinagar to Ganaie, who further distributed them to active cadres or terrorists of the TRF to carry out targeted killings to spread terror.

“The accused were also engaged in radicalising, motivating and instigating vulnerable youth to join TRF or LeT and other terror outfits in Kashmir.

“Besides arms and ammunition, NIA investigators had recovered several incriminating materials, including chats about terror funds, from the mobile phones of the accused persons,” the agency said.

The NIA has established that the accused had been carrying out terrorist activities for a long time, thereby threatening the security, integrity and sovereignty of India, it added.

The agency had taken over the case initially registered by the Chanapora police station in May 2022 and re-registered it at the NIA’s Jammu branch office on June 18, 2022.

The NIA intends to intensify its efforts to dismantle all terror networks and demolish their support infrastructure by attaching and seizing their properties in the coming days, the statement said.