India's federal investigating organisation, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), said on Tuesday it had seized the residence of jailed separatist politician Ayaz Akbar in Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar.
The seizure - also known as "attachment" in Indian law - was made in connection with an NIA case against Akbar, separatist politicians, businessmen and Pakistan-based militants. The NIA has booked and jailed several people on allegations of funding militancy in the Kashmir region.
At the time of seizure, the house was being used by Akbar's children. His wife, Rafeeqa Khandey, died at the Srinagar residence in April 2021, while Akbar was in jail, after suffering from cancer for several years.
Akbar, who was spokesman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference - a separatist group seeking for Jammu and Kashmir to be merged with Pakistan - was arrested in 2017.
The group was formerly headed by senior separatist politician Syed Ali Geelani who died in 2021.
Seizure of Akbar's Srinagar residence comes a day after the NIA seized 17 properties belonging to prominent Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali who is also one of the accused in the case.
“Watali had been sending funds he raised from various sources to the Hurriyat leaders to promote the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India,” the NIA statement read.
Watali, who was imprisoned in New Delhi's Tihar jail, was released earlier in February this year on health grounds. Akbar remains jailed along with several other Kashmiri separatist politicians.
Since 2017, federal investigative agencies such as the NIA, Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, have launched all sorts of investigations against separatist outfits, activists, and Kashmiri and Pakistani militants on allegations of financing militancy and separatism in Jammu and Kashmir.
Along with federal agencies, local police and probe agencies are also investigating separatists - most of whom at present are imprisoned in jails across India.
An anti-India militancy erupted in the Kashmir region in 1989 which the Indian government says is being backed by the Pakistani establishment, a charge that Pakistan denies.
Law enforcement agencies have attached properties worth millions of dollars in the past few years. Indian authorities maintain that the properties play a key role in financing militancy in the region.