The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday said an FIR has been registered against Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi for allegedly advocating secession of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India and calling for Jihad and use of violence against the country.
The FIR was registered on April 26 this year against Asiya and her associates, a senior NIA official said adding the accused are likely to be questioned by authorities soon.
“The Central Government has received information that one Aasiya Andrabi and her associates namely Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen are actively running a terrorist organisation named as “Dukhtaran-E-Millat” (DEM) which is proscribed under the First Schedule to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. They are using various media platforms to spread insurrectionary imputations and hateful speeches that endanger the integrity, security and sovereignty of India,” NIA said.
The probe agency has alleged that DEM, through Aasiya, “openly advocates secession of Jammu & Kashmir from the Union of India and has also called for Jihad and use of violence against India”.
Asiya, who is currently jailed in Srinagar, is the head of DEM, a separatist organisation founded in 1987. She is also the wife of jailed separatist leader Dr. Qasim Faktoo. Arrested for alleged unlawful activities, Asiya’s DEM was named in a earlier NIA case in which Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen supremo Syed Salahudin were charge sheeted.
{{/usCountry}}Asiya, who is currently jailed in Srinagar, is the head of DEM, a separatist organisation founded in 1987. She is also the wife of jailed separatist leader Dr. Qasim Faktoo. Arrested for alleged unlawful activities, Asiya’s DEM was named in a earlier NIA case in which Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen supremo Syed Salahudin were charge sheeted.
{{/usCountry}}NIA spokesperson Alok Mittal told HT that the case against Asiya is a separate one.
“Aasiya Andrabi and her associates have written and spoken words, besides publishing visible representations that bring into hatred and contempt apart from exciting disaffection towards the Government of India. DEM is promoting enmity, hatred and ill-will between different communities on the grounds of religion and is doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony. Aasiya Andrabi has solicited help from proscribed terrorist organizations and along with her associates has entered into a criminal conspiracy to wage war against Government of India,” the agency said.
DEM already figured among the 39 banned terrorist organisation under section 35 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act but had been conducting its activities in the valley.