A Delhi court on Tuesday sent seven Kashmiri separatists, including the son-in-law of Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, to 10 days National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody in a terror funding case. This was done on a plea by the agency that their custodial interrogation was needed.
District Judge Poonam Bamba remanded the accused to police custody after the NIA argued that their custody was required to unearth the criminal conspiracy hatched by them.
The NIA had sought the custody of the accused for 18 days after they were produced at the Patiala House Court.
The agency informed that the accused — Altaf Ahmed Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Shahid-ul-Islam, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Nayeem Khan and Farooq Ahmed — were to be confronted with each other and with other incriminating evidences.
The NIA said the custody is also important to identify the accused persons who are allegedly involved in creating unrest by way of anti-national demonstrations and bandhs on the instructions of the accused and co-accused.
However, appearing for the accused, their lawyer Rajat Kumar said that they are being falsely implicated in the case. He also contended that the investigations have been ongoing from the last one month and the accused have been co-operating.
Appearing for NIA, the public prosecutor said that it is unfortunate that under the cover of security provided by the government of India, the accused persons have been doing illegal acts to cause unrest in the nation. He said that the accused would be taken to Kashmir and other places for interrogation.
Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of separatist leader Geelani, was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who had put him under preventive detention immediately after the festival of Eid earlier this month. Geelani's close aides Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the NIA from the Valley.
The court held that interest of justice would be met if 10 days custody is granted to allow the agency to unearth the complete conspiracy.
