Civil Society members from Central Kashmir’s Budgam district threatened to stir an agitation in case National Investigating Agency continues to harass the family members of Hizbul Mujhadeen Chief Syed Salahuddin.
Reliable sources told news agency CNS that people from cross section of society including the members from civil society Budgam met Deputy Commissioner and SSP Budgam on Saturday. The civil society members included Advocate Hafizullah Mir, Retired Chief Audit Officer Abdul Rahim Malik, Retired bureaucrat Ghulam Rasool Malik, renowned columnist M J Lone and former General Manager JK Bank Syed Abdul Hamid.
Sources said that during the meeting the civil society members alleged that NIA has been harassing family members of Syed Salahuddin who according to them are innocent. The members during the meeting with the civil administration and police officials said that the family members of Syed Salahuddin have been living in peace since 1990 when Salahuddin crossed the border and settled in Pakistan administered Kashmir.
Demanding the immediate release of Salahuddins son Shahid Yousuf and cancellation of NIA summon to grandson of Salahuddin, the civil society members said that if harassment persists, it will have serious ramifications. They threatened to launch an agitation in case NIA doesn’t stop harassing the Salahuddin’s family. They also demanded that NIA should handover all the cell phones and lap tops of family that it seized during a raid at Soibugh Budgam.
“We will court arrest and the responsibility of any untoward happening will lie with the state government,” they said.
Pertinently, one of Salahuddin’s son was arrested earlier this week by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) after he was summoned by the central probe agency to its Delhi headquarter.
A Delhi court sent Syed Shahid Yousuf to seven days NIA custody in connection with a 2011 funding case for allegedly receiving money from his father.
Yousuf, who was arrested on October 24 by National Investigation Agency (NIA), was produced before District and Sessions Judge Poonam A Bamba, who allowed the probe agency's plea for his custody.
42-year-old Shahid works in the agricultural department of the Jammu and Kashmir government.
The NIA alleged that Shahid 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 is reported to be based in Saudi Arabia.
After his arrest, the family had issued a statement, claiming that Shahid was arrested to “pressurize Salahuddin to submission”.
In the statement, the family while maintaining that Shahid was innocent, said his arrest was an “age-old tactic by the Delhi government to harass the family and to defame our father.”
On Friday, Salahuddin’s grandson was also summoned by the probe agency for “questioning” at their Delhi headquarters.
Muzammil Ahmad Khan, only son of Salahuddin’s daughter, has done his B.Tech from Pakistan and puts up at Daharmuna, two kilometers from Salahuddin’s ancestral home.