Centre may soon ban all Hurriyat factions under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), citing ’ involvement in terror financing in Jammu and Kashmir as grounds for this action.
According to the report in Times of India, sources in the intelligence agencies said that the Modi government might decide to ban all factions of the Hurriyat Conference including the faction that was led by now deceased Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The government plans to ban these factions under Section 3(1) of the UAPA.
Earlier, the Jammu and Kashmir government along with NIA had submitted input to the Home Ministry about the Hurriyat Conference financing terror in the state. The Home Minister had then sought additional information from NIA and the state govt.
An officer, speaking to Times of India said that even though several leaders of the Hurriyat have been in jail in the past couple of years and agencies have cracked down on terror financing, a ban on Hurriyat would help curb terrorism further. He said it would help the agencies curb the community level fund collection that is carried on by the Hurriyat conference.
The ban would also mean that Hurriyat would have to dismantle all its offices and infrastructure and the calls to Bandh and protest would automatically be considered illegal.
Once the government decides to ban the Hurriyat Conference, the government would announce the decision in the official gazette. Thereafter, the decision would have to be approved by the committee that has been formed under UAPA to ratify such decisions.
Earlier this year it was reported that government is mulling strongly the possibility of banning both factions of Hurriyat under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
According to sources in the Union Home Ministry, while discussions to declare both the hardline and moderate factions of the Hurriyat as “unlawful association” have started, file movement in this regard is yet to begin.
They said a recent probe into the granting of MBBS seats to Kashmiri students by institutions in Pakistan indicates that the money collected from aspirants by some organisations, which were part of the Hurriyat Conference conglomerate, was being used for funding terror organisations in the Union Territory.