"You see the money that pours into India from [Pakistan's] ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] is huge -- it runs into Rs 100 crore per annum," K Rajendran, in charge of the administration in the state police headquarters, told rediff.com over the phone.

"There have been frequent clashes in the recent past over who would keep the bigger share of money and militants belonging to the Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Tayiba  and other groups have been killing rivals in encounters. The attack on S A R Geelani could also be linked to this," Rajendran, a former inspector general of the Kashmir police, added.

In an affidavit before the Supreme Court, Geelani has accused the special cell of the Delhi police of engineering the attack on him. The Urdu professor of Zakir Hussain College has demanded the matter be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation for impartial investigation.

The Delhi police have challenged Geelani's acquittal in the Parliament attack case in the Supreme Court. They deny the professor's allegations.

Meanwhile, sources close to pro-Pakistan Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani saw similarities between the attacks on his aides in Srinagar [Images] last year and the one on the Delhi-based professor.

"Professor Geelani has political ambitions and he was getting too close to the separatist leader [S A S Geelani] who is looking for a successor," said an aide of the hardline separatist leader.

"The ISI is also trying to promote new faces in Kashmir and this had upset some of those who were seeing themselves as future leaders of Teherik-e-Hurriyat once Syed Ali Shah Geelani retires a couple of years from now. The attack [on professor Geelani] could have been engineered by such elements," he added.