NIA questions Er Rashid

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 4

As the Awami Itehad Party (AIP) president Engineer Rashid was questioned by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) today in a terror-funding case, the Peoples United Front (PUF) condemned the “last-minute summons”.

“The AIP supremo and PUF (amalgam of the AIP and J&K Peoples Movement) leader Engineer Rashid was summoned by the NIA on Friday. Despite his reluctance to leave at such a short notice, Rashid had to reach for the NIA questioning this morning,” said AIP state spokesperson Sheeban Ashai.

Asserting that the AIP leadership had “nothing to hide”, Ashai said: “These kinds of last-minute summons, at a time when Kashmir is going through such a great political uncertainty, raises many red flags. The AIP denounces the witchhunt against its leadership for trying to forge unity among various stakeholders vis-a-vis safeguarding Articles 35A and 370.”

The JKPM president Shah Faesal too condemned the NIA summons to Rashid, calling these a deliberate attempt to intimidate the mainstream leadership in the state. Faesal, while defending Rashid, said he had “become a voice of the masses and at a time when Kashmir was going through an unprecedented crisis”.