The National Investigation Agency has filed a charge sheet against Dilawar Iqbal, identified as a key aide to Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi, and Mohammed Ubaid Malik from Kupwara. The charges involve an alleged conspiracy to disrupt peace and communal harmony in Jammu and Kashmir by targeting security forces, according to officials on Wednesday.
Dilawar Iqbal, hailing from Abbaspur in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and known by various aliases such as Maaz Khan Kashmiri and Azad Kashmiri, is accused of delivering inflammatory speeches to incite youths in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir to engage in terrorist activities, as per the agency's statement.
In the charge sheet submitted to a special court in Jammu, the NIA contends that Dilawar Iqbal, closely associated with Masood Azhar, played a role in indoctrinating and motivating Ubaid Malik to join the ranks of JeM militants.
The agency asserts that Dilawar Iqbal was actively involved in motivating Kashmiri youths as part of a broader conspiracy orchestrated by proscribed terrorist organizations and their associates to carry out terrorist activities in the region.
"Dilwar would incite youth having a militancy background to pursue Jihad by sharing with them inflammatory audio clips and videos as well as images of Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi, showing the latter preaching radical Islam."
"He would also send videos related to encounters in the Kashmir valley and would provoke the youth to pick up arms," an NIA spokesperson said.
The agency has been probing the terror conspiracy case since June 21, 2022 after taking it up on a suo motu basis. The case pertains to the conspiracy hatched by Pakistan-based terrorist organisations to "unleash violent terrorist attacks in J-K with sticky bombs, IEDs and small arms, etc" to carry out terrorist attacks and violence in the Union Territory.
"It involves radicalisation of local youth and mobilisation of overground workers of newly floated terrorist groups such as - The Resistance Front (TRF), United Liberation Front Jammu & Kashmir (ULFJ&K), Mujahideen Gazwat-ul-Hind (MGH), Jammu & Kashmir Freedom Fighters (JKFF), Kashmir Tigers, PAAF and others.
"These outfits are affiliated to proscribed terrorist outfits like Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Al-Badr, Al-Qaeda, etc," the agency has alleged.
