SRINAGAR: The owner-cum-editor of a little-known local English newspaper,, Mohammad Hayat Bhat of Pampore, Pulwama district, appeared at the NIA’s Delhi headquarters on Tuesday for questioning in connection with a terror funding case, official sources said.

The NIA had summoned Hayat Bhat, also known as Haji Hayat,last week. The questioning was still on, the officials added.

“Kashmir Reader” was launched in 2012 by Bhat, who ran as mall advertising agency called “Helpline Advertising Agency” with aid from some other country, official sources claimed.

Bhat got the Srinagar Municipal Corporation hoardinginstallation contract for government advertisements for 10 years, at about 150places across Srinagar, for a meagre amount in 2007, said a municipal corporation official. A senior NIA official claimed Bhat has “closeconnections” to terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba and has hired known “jihadi journalists” to write for his newspaper. These “jihadi journalists” now happento be executive members of the Kashmir Press Club as well, the official added.

The agency, according to sources, is examining the creation of a group called “Kashmir Editors’ Guild” by a few “editors”. It fears that the guild is the creation of an ISI media cell based in Rawalpindi.