New Delhi: To an average Kashmiri, Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali is a well-known businessman with interests ranging from construction, dry fruits to woodwork units.
But the NIA, which attached 17 properties belonging to Watali in Handwara in Kashmir’s Kupwara district Monday, claims he had another business — the alleged funnelling of Pakistani money to the Hurriyat Conference — a separatist group formed as a coalition of political and social parties based in Kashmir.
Watali was arrested in connection with the NIA’s terror funding investigation in August 2017. According to investigators, he ran a web of companies, which he used as “fronts” to receive money from Pakistan, which he then diverted to the Hurriyat to fund anti-India activities.
Born in Kashmir, 71-year-old Watali has had a long association with Hurriyat — sources in the NIA told ThePrint that it started in 1992 when he began meeting Abdul Ghani Lone, a former Kashmiri-separatist leader. Lone was shot dead in 2002, while attending the 12th memorial service for Kashmiri leader Mirwaiz Moulvi Farooq at the Eidgah in Srinagar.
According to the NIA, Watali has been acting as a conduit and receiving funds from Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistan High Commission.
Hafiz Saeed top commander of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and chief of the LeT’s political arm, the Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD). He’s one of the chief suspects in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
According to the NIA, Watali’s web of companies includes Trison Farms and Constructions Pvt. Limited (TPFCL), Trison International, Yasir Enterprises, 3Y, Kashmir Veneer Industries and Three Star. He allegedly used these companies to funnel money from off-shore locations.
The money was allegedly transferred to the Hurriyat to help them in waging a war against the Government of India by repeated attacks on security forces and Government establishments and by damaging public property, including schools.
“Watali brought money from off-shore locations to India by layering it through the scores of firms and companies he had,” an NIA source told ThePrint.
The source added: “He acted as one of the conduits to bring money to fuel anti-India activities in J&K. He was a known real estate businessman in Kashmir who dealt in hawala transactions. He worked as a financier for terror organisations and a number of cases were registered against him, which were being investigated by the sister investigating agencies.”
The case under which he was arrested was filed in 2017 against terrorists belonging to JuD, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, LeT, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and other separatist leaders in the then state of J&K for “raising, receiving and collecting funds for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu & Kashmir and entering into a larger conspiracy for causing disruption in Kashmir valley and for waging war against India,” the NIA said in its chargesheet in January 2018. ThePrint has a copy of the charge sheet.
A trial court in May 2022 framed charges against Watali and others. Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) commander Yasin Malik was convicted in the same case and is currently undergoing life imprisonment.
Besides Malik, 17 others — including Hafiz Saeed and Mohammad Yusuf Shah alias Syed Salahuddin, the top commander of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen — were also chargesheeted in the case.
The court had also formally framed the charges against several Kashmiri separatist leaders, including Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karate, Shabir Shah, Masarat Alam Bhat, Md Yusuf Shah, Aftab Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Khan, Md Akbar Khanday, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, Shabir Ahmad Shah, Abdul Rashid Sheikh, and Naval Kishore Kapoor.
The properties attached Monday were an extension of this crackdown.
Also Read: NIA attaches Kashmir properties of Hizbul chief Syed Salahuddin’s 2 sons, lodged in Tihar
Fake companies, records, funds from ‘unknown sources’
According to sources in the NIA, Watali’s companies received funds from “unknown sources” in different accounts on several occasions.
Among these remittances was the Rs. 93,87,639.31 that he allegedly received from “unknown sources” in a non-resident external (NRE) account, at the J&K Bank between 2011 and 2013.
A non-resident external account is one that non-resident Indians use to deposit their foreign earnings for transacting in India.
In addition to this, Watali also allegedly received foreign remittances to the tune of Rs. 2,26,87,639.31 in various between 2011 and 2016, NIA sources claimed.
Besides these, Rs 14 lakh were allegedly remitted to the account of a medical college in Jammu through national electronic fund transfer (NEFT) as fees deposited for his son, Rs.60 lakh were allegedly sent to his current account in J&K Bank, and Rs 5 lakh was allegedly transferred to his company TFCPL. All these transactions allegedly took place in 2013 and the money in all three cases came from unknown sources.
“There was no explanation provided for this,” the source claimed.
Watali also allegedly leased out a land that he claimed was in the name of TFCPL, and took Rs 5.5 crore from a man named Nawal Kapoor, a resident of the United Arab Emirates.
But NIA’s investigation revealed that the land wasn’t registered in the company’s name, sources claimed.
“In 2014, a man named Nawal Kishore Kapoor, a resident of United Arab Emirates had an agreement with Watali’s TFCPL, to take land measuring 20 kanals in Budgam in J&K on lease for Rs 6 crore as premium and Rs 1,000 annual rent for an initial period of 40 years which could be extended through mutual agreement,” a second source said.
TFCPL was declared as the absolute owner of the land, the source claimed, and Kapoor remitted a total sum of Rs 5.579 crore in 22 instalments to Watali between 2013 and 2016.
“During investigation, however, it was found that no land exists in the name of TFCPL, according to the company’s balance sheet,” the source said.
In addition, investigators found that Kapoor had mobilised Rs.5.57 crore from unknown sources and sent it to Watali for a land that “does not even exist”.
“This agreement was a cover created by Watali to bring foreign remittances from unknown sources to India,” the source added.
In order to keep his records clean, Watali allegedly forged his companies’ balance sheets and forcibly got them signed without providing any documents.
“We questioned the auditors and were told that he forced them to sign the reports without producing books for verification. The fact that he received money from abroad, including from Hafiz Saeed, the High Commission of Pakistan and others, and was passing on the said funds to Hurriyat leaders proves that he is part of the conspiracy,” the source alleged.
NIA sources further said that during searches in the case, investigators found a list of ISI officials and a letter from Tariq Shafi, proprietor of the Pakistan-based Al Shafi Group of companies, addressed to the Pakistan High Commission recommending a visa for Watali. This, sources claimed, “shows his proximity with the Pakistani Establishment”.
“He was in continuous touch with the Pakistan establishment. Call detail records also revealed that Watali and other accused persons were in touch with each other and with some militants and Over Ground Workers,” the source claimed.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)