Hizbul chief Syed Salahuddin's son to NIA custody till Sept 10

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday sent the second son of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin to National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody till September 10. 48-year-old Syed Ahmed Shakeel is the second son of the globally-wanted terrorist Salahuddin. He was arrested on Thursday by the NIA in connection with a 2011 terror funding case for allegedly receiving money from his father.

Shakeel, who works as a senior laboratory assistant, was placed under arrest at Rambagh locality in Srinagar by the Jammu and Kashmir Police accompanied by NIA officials when he was on his way to Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Science. Earlier this year, Salahuddin.'s other son Shahid was also arrested in the case of money laundering.

The probe agency claimed that during the investigation, Shakeel's role had surfaced in raising, receiving, collecting funds from terrorist organisation through its active cadres from Saudi Arabia. The agency also claimed that Shakeel received money through Western Union several times which were sent by absconding chargesheeted accused Aijaz Ahmad Bhat alias Aijaz Maqbool Bhat. The probe showed that Shakeel received funds from various countries from the operatives of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. 

The case, registered by the NIA in April 2011, relates to transfer of money from Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir through hawala channels via Delhi, which the agency believed was used in funding terrorism and secessionist activities.

Shakeel's father Mohammed Yusuf Shah -- better known as Syed Sa

lahuddin -- was declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US Department of State. Besides heading terror outfit Hizb-ul Mujahideen, he is the chairman of the United Jehad Council (UJC), a conglomerate of terrorist outfits operating in the Kashmir Valley.

The NIA had also registered two others cases related to terror funding -- one in November 2011 and the other in May this year. It had filed a charge sheet against 10 people including Syed Salahuddin in the April 2011 case.

In the recent case, the NIA arrested 10 people including some close relatives and aides of Syed Ali Shah Geelani.