Srinagar

On Sunday as the sign board of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat in Urdu and English was removed from the office-cum residence of Syed Ali Shah Geelani on the Srinagar outskirts locality of Hyderpora, it was becoming clear that the separatists are expecting a major action by the government.

This comes amidst reports that the government is all likely to ban the two factions of the once powerful All J&K Hurriyat Conference, formed on orders of Islamabad in 1993, and since split between the Geelani headed faction and the other led by Mirwiaz Moulvi Umer Farooq, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The likely ban is being imposed after a probe into a case related to its leaders being party to extracting money from students being sent to Pakistan for admission into Medical colleges as islamabad’s diplomacy to woo the separatists. The probe by the NIA found that for each admission to the next of the kin of the slain pro-Pakistan terrorists, the Hurriyat had demanded Rs 10-12 lakh each, while the colleges didn’t charge the students.

The money was used by the Hurriyat’s agents was found to have been used for funding terror organisations in J&K.

The officials said both the factions of the Hurriyat are likely to be banned under Section 3(1) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or the UAPA, under which “if the Central Government is of opinion that any association is, or has become, an unlawful association, it may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare such association to be unlawful.”

So far, the Centre has banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and the JKLF under the UAPA. The ban was imposed in 2019.

The officials said a probe into funding of terror groups indicated alleged involvement of secessionist and separatist leaders, including the members and cadres of the Hurriyat Conference who have been acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed militant organisations Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The cadres raised funds in the country and from abroad through various illegal channels, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir.

The funds collected were used for causing disruption in the Kashmir Valley by way of pelting stones on security forces, systematically burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India as part of a criminal conspiracy, they claimed.

Supporting the case for banning the two factions of the Hurriyat Conference under the UAPA, the officials cited several cases related to terror funding, including the one being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in which several of the conglomerate”s cadres were arrested and jailed.

Also, the Counter Intelligence (Kashmir), a branch of CID department of Jammu and Kashmir Police, registered a case in July last year following information that several unscrupulous persons, including some Hurriyat leaders, were hand in glove with some educational consultancies and are selling Pakistan-based MBBS seats and admission in other professional courses in various colleges and universities.

At least four persons, including Mohammad Akbar Bhat alias Zaffar Bhat, self-styled chairman of Salvation Movement which is part of moderate Hurriyat Conference, were arrested in this case.

It is alleged that the constituents of Hurriyat Conference were “selling” MBBS seats in Pakistan to Kashmiri students and using the money collected, at least partly, to support and fund terrorism.

During the probe, it had surfaced that individual Hurriyat leaders had their quota of seats which were sold to people desiring to obtain MBBS and other professional degrees in one way or the other, the officials said.