The State Investigation Agency (SIA), a newly-formed investigating body on the lines of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), has carried out multiple raids in Kashmir valley and arrested 10 alleged militant supporters of the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), officials said on Wednesday.
An official spokesman said the 10 were working as Over Ground Workers (OGWs), a term used by the security agencies in Kashmir for those who support militancy, during raids in south and central Kashmir. “These raids were primarily focused on the network of the JeM. Ten persons, who were part of the OGW modules and taking instructions from [JeM] commanders, have been arrested,” the officials said.
‘Sub-modules’ discovered
The module, according to the SIA, had members who organised themselves into sub-modules “in the form of verticals so that in the event of detection of one member the bigger network does not get compromised”.
The investigating agency said these members of the sub-modules were painstakingly discovered through discreet surveillance and corroborative intelligence “capable of being converted to admissible evidence in the court”.
“The module could be connected to other modules through higher levels of the JeM leadership. Their discovery is likely as the investigation rolls out in coming days,” the SIA said.
The agency said the module had been active in recruiting other young persons, arranging finances, transporting weapons in south and central Kashmir, besides providing other logistic support. The arrested members were mostly recruiting vulnerable “school and college” going students as a few of them were students themselves, it said.
“In the searches, besides making arrests, cell phones, SIM cards, records to show use of banking channels and even a dummy pistol were seized. Among the arrested persons, there is one at whose house four militants had been killed on 4 April 2020,” the SIA said.
It said the digital records seized were being sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory “for evidence analysis”.
“The arrested persons would be presented before the NIA court in Srinagar seeking permission for custodial questioning. It is believed the arrests and subsequent follow-up investigation would dent the upper ground network of (JeM) and degrade its ability to undertake [militant] activities across the Valley,” the agency said.
The SIA, which was constituted by the Jammu and Kashmir administration in November last year, is a nodal agency for coordinating with the NIA and other Central agencies “to take measures as may be necessary for speedy and effective investigation and prosecution of militancy-related cases”.
