‘Jihad business centre’ running in Srinagar Central Jail

9 cellphones, 15 SIM cards recovered; action underway against jail staff

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 17: While proceeding with the investigation in Maulana Shaukat Shah’s assassination here on April 8^th, Police today conducted a major search operation in Srinagar Central Jail and discovered that a number of detained militants had been freely interacting with their outside contacts through their mobile phones. As many as nine mobile phone sets, alongwith 15 SIM cards and battery chargers, were recovered from about a dozen of the prisoners whose communication system was found operational despite presence of six signal jammers on the premises.

It was exactly at midnight last that Police in Srinagar requisitioned permission from the state Home Commissioner, B R Sharma, for conducting a raid on Srinagar Central Jail in search of “a number of mobile phones” that, according to inputs, were operational with over a dozen militants and separatists on the fortified premises. Mr Sharma completed necessary formality within minutes and faxed the document from his Jammu residence.

Around the same time, Police requested Deputy Commissioner of Srinagar, Meraj Ahmed Kakroo, to provide an executive magistrate for the purpose of supervising a “raid on a house”. At 0620 hours, a thick contingent of Srinagar District Police and CRPF, headed by SSP Srinagar, Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, swooped on the jail to conduct first of its operation in the last 22 years of militancy. SP City South, Shaukat Sarwar, SP Hazratbal, Abdul Waheed Shah, SP City East, Zulfikar Hussain, besides half-a-dozen Dy SPs, were part of the operation supervised by a Tehsildar.

Informed sources, associated with the raid, revealed to Early Times that the search operation was conducted on all twelve barracks of different militant organizations. When the operation concluded at 1230 hours, as many as 9 mobile phone sets and 15 SIM cards had been recovered from about a dozen detainees of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and other guerrilla groups. Surprisingly, the telecommunication devices were found operational inspite of six signal jammers on the premises.

“Use of telecommunication equipment is completely banned in all jails. Still, jammers have been installed to prevent interaction of prisoners with their contacts outside. Just one jammer is normally sufficient to block all such communications but surprisingly all the cellphones were found to have been in use”, a middle rung official revealed. According to him, 15 SIM cards seized from the barracks belonged to the Government of India controlled BSNL besides Aircel, Tata Indicom, Airtel and other private telecommunication companies.

Sources said that Police frisked the bodies and belongings of all the 500-odd prisoners who included 11 Pakistani nationals belonging to three different Jihadi outfits. Even as the process of scanning all incoming and outgoing call detail records, text messages, internet chats and emails conducted by the seized mobile phones was still underway, sources said that a number of the devices carried GPRS facility. These included sophisticated Samsung Galaxy and i-phones from Apple which are as good as computers in handling Internet traffic.

A senior Police official said that smuggling in cellphones, SIM cards and battery chargers would not be possible without involvement of the jail staff. He said that the investigating team was preparing a detailed report that was likely to be sent to the Government on Monday.

While as IGP Prison, Mohammad Amin Anjum, did not respond to a call and Superintendent of Srinagar Central Jail, Dhinesh Sharma, was not reachable for comment, Home Commissioner, B R Sharma, said that government would take action, if any necessary, on the basis of a detailed report from Srinagar. He said that the operation was still underway and he too was heavily preoccupied with today’s Panchayat elections. Mr Sharma is also Chief Electoral Officer of Jammu and Kashmir.

IGP Kashmir, S M Sahai, and SSP Srinagar, Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, refused to comment, though the SSP confirmed that the raid was in connection with the investigation into Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith chief Maulana Shaukat Shah’s assassination. The cleric had died in an IED blast at a mosque in uptown Maisuma locality here on April 8^th.

Yesterday only, Police claimed to have solved the high profile politico-religious assassination. It claimed to have arrested four of the 10 persons, allegedly involved in the killing. According to Police, Pakistan-based Sout-ul-Haq and Tahreek-ul-Mujahideen chief Jameel-ur-Rehman, former TuM chief Abdul Gani Dar alias Abdullah Gazali and detained supremo of Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, Ashiq Hussain Faktoo alias Dr Qasim, had hatched up the conspiracy of Maulana’s killing while as Sopore-based Pakistani chief of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Abdullah Uni, had provided three pistols and three detonators for the operation.

In a significant development today, spokespersons of all the three guerrilla groups besides Sout-ul-Haq and Faktoo’s relatives rebutted the accusation. They all invariably described the Police statement as “baseless” and claimed that it was only with the purpose of defaming the separatist movement and creating a wedge of mistrust between the groups participating in the “freedom struggle”.

Srinagar Central Jail insiders revealed to Early Times that during today’s search operation, Faktoo shouted on SSP Bukhari that he was being fabricated in baseless cases. He claimed that Gazali had never visited him at the jail or interacted with him through any other means. His relatives complained that Faktoo, who was serving a life term for allegedly ordering killing of human rights activist, H N Wanchoo, had been made a target of the “vilification campaign” just a day before a Double Bench of J&K High Court was expected to release him on parole. Once head of dreaded Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, Faktoo has completed his Ph D in detention and the jail authorities have described his conduct as impressive. He is the husband of detained Dukhtaraan-e-Millat Chairperson, Asiya Andrabi.

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