The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested nine people and seized demonetised currency notes worth Rs 36.3 crore in a case related to funding of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, media reports said Tuesday.

The agency arrested the nine men after it found that some people with links to separatists and militant still had demonetised currency, Scroll.in reported.

Seven of the gang members were caught on Monday, near Connaught Place in New Delhi, carrying 28 cartons of the scrapped notes in four luxury vehicles. The others were caught later.

They will be produced in a special NIA court on Wednesday.

Those held were Pradeep Chauhan, 47, Bhagwan Singh, 54, Vinod Shreedhar Shetty, 47, Shahnawaz Mir, 45, Deepak Toprani, 60, Majid Yousuf Sofi, 27, Ejajul Hassan, 38, Umar Mushtaq Dar, 27, and Jaswinder Singh, 53.

Three hail from Jammu and Kashmir, two from Delhi, two from Mumbai, and one each from Uttar Pradesh and Nagpur.

NIA said it received inputs about “persons/entities having links with separatists/terrorists and still in possession of a significant amount of demonetised currency, which they could not deposit or convert during the period earmarked by the government.”

“Surveillance was mounted, which led to unearthing of a conspiracy wherein these persons were trying to convert the demonetised money into valid currency.”

In the case, the NIA has so far arrested seven Hurriyat leaders, a businessman, for receiving “funds from Pakistan to sponsor terror activities and stone-pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.” A Kashmiri photojournalist has also been arrested by the agency.

Earlier in the day, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the demonetisation of high-value currency notes had helped curb the funding of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, as the “miscreants have run out of cash”.