Aasiya Andrabi’s aide opposes NIA’s plea for voice sample before court

New Delhi: An associate of Kashmiri separatist Aasiya Andrabi, arrested in a case of allegedly waging war against the country with support from Pakistan, opposed in a Delhi court Thursday the NIA plea for recording her voice sample for their investigation.
A lawyer appearing for the accused — Nahida Nasreen — told Special Judge Rakesh Syal that the National Investigation Agency’s demand for her voice sample was not permissible under the law.
According to a court source, NIA told the court that it had some audio recordings related to their ongoing investigation with which the agency required to match Nasreen’s voice. The submissions were made before the court during an in-camera proceedings.
The court in December last year directed NIA to hand over the copy of the charge sheet and other documents filed along with it to Andrabi, chief of the banned outfit Dukhtaran-e-Milat, and her two associates Nasreen and Sofi Fehmeeda. Andrabi, Fehmeeda and Nasreen are currently in judicial custody.
The charge sheet and the documents, which also include electronic copies of the accused’s speeches, videos and social media links, were handed over to the accused. The court posted the matter for further hearing on May 6.
In its charge sheet, NIA has claimed that a probe revealed that the accused were running a concerted campaign to elicit support from the neighbouring country. It accused them of being involved in conspiracy and acts to “severely destabilize the sovereignty and integrity of India”. The case was registered against the three women in April, 2018.
Andrabi was in a prison in Srinagar after the Jammu and Kashmir High Court cancelled her bail in November last year. On directions of the Union Home Ministry, has registered a case against them as well as the organisation, which is banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, in April this year.
According to the FIR, the “central government has received information that Aasiya Andrabi and her associates namely Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen are actively running a terrorist organization named as ‘Dukhtaran-E-Millat’ (DEM) which is proscribed under the First Schedule to the UAPA”.
The agency has also said in the FIR that Andrabi and her associates had allegedly spoken, written and also published “visible representations that bring into hatred and contempt apart from exciting disaffection towards the Government of India”.