Two years after retirement, Ashiq Bukhari getting IPS

Kashmir's ace counterinsurgent returning to Police service as DIG

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
_________
 

SRINAGAR, Nov 30: Top counterterrorism expert Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, who had retired from Jammu and Kashmir Police service as Senior Superintendent of Police in January 2014, is likely to join back as Deputy Inspector General of Police as the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has granted him induction into Indian Police Service (IPS) and ordered that his seniority as SP should be fixed from the date he began officiating as SP in Budgam district.

Consequently, Bukhari will get two more years of service and his placement is being fixed between DIG Central Kashmir Ghulam Hassan Bhat and DIG CID Headquarters Syed Kifayat Haider.

Dismissing the objections of the retired SSP Amjad Pervez Mirza, High Court has declared Bukhari as SP on a substantive position from the day he had officiated as SP Budgam while holding the posting of Additional SP of Special Operations Group (SOG) in Budgam. Following the pronouncement of judgment in a service writ petition, Home Department of Government of Jammu and Kashmir has approached Union Public Service Commission with the plea that Bukhari may be treated as inducted into IPS with the seniority granted to him by the court and his year of IPS allotment may be fixed as 2000.

UPSC is understood to have taken up the matter in turn with the union Department of Personnel & Training and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs that regulates the IPS. Since the respondent State is clearly in favour of Bukhari and the Home Department under Chief Minister's direct control has decided not to move an appeal against the retired officer, it is likely that Government of India would issue necessary orders in his favour in the next one or two weeks.

On January 31, 2014, Bukhari had reached superannuation as a KPS officer on attaining age of 58 years. It happened two months before the Omar Abdullah government raised the retirement age of the State services employees from 58 to 60 years. 

Induction into IPS would give two more years of service to Bukhari besides his elevation to the rank of DIG by virtue of his fresh fixation of the seniority as SP.

As and when the Centre would issue an order, Bukhari would be eligible to join back as DIG. Since his new date of superannuation (31-01-2016) is just two months away, he is likely to join and serve for a day and take voluntary retirement from service. That will give him entitlement to all the pensionary bebefits as DIG.

Well placed sources in the government told STATE TIMES that Bukhari could be immediately thereafter adjusted as a member or head of a board or a commission owing to his proximity and known loyalty to Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

With his unmatched profile on counterterrorism front, Bukhari has served as SSP of Budgam, Anantnag and Srinagar districts besides brief tenures as SP CIK, AIG Provisions at Police Headquarters and SSP Crime Branch. I 1997, he was the first Kashmiri Muslim Police officer who volunteered to join the counterterrorist SOG, then known as Soecial Task Force (STF). He has to his credit elimination and arrest of over 300 Kashmiri militants.

END