‘Army raped informant woman, delayed action till 5 foreigners were killed’

American book on Al-Faran hostages provides fresh fuel to Kashmiri separatists

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 16: Rendered politically bankrupt in the aftermath of street clashes of the year 2010 and suffering a major setback in Ghulam Nabi Fai’s conviction by an American court, Kashmiri separatists are likely to get a fresh lease of life in a book written on the mysterious kidnapping of six Western tourists in 1995. Compiled by two American authors, the 500-page non-fiction, titled “The Meadow”, claims that the Indian intelligence and security agencies not only delayed action---till five of the foreigners were killed---but also sexually assaulted a woman who had reported to them sighting of a German hostage.

“The Meadow” claims to be based on years of research and hundreds of interviews by authors, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, who worked in South Asia during the kidnappings and for years after. It uses a combination of named and unnamed sources, journals and official files and transcripts to build its case---against the Indian establishment.


On July 4^th, 1995, an unknown guerrilla group calling itself ‘Al-Faran’ claimed kidnapping of six tourists in Lidder valley, near Pahalgam, in south-east Kashmir. Keith Mangan and Paul Wells of Britain; two Americans, John Childs of Simsbury, Connecticut, and Donald Hutchings of Spokane, Washington; a German, Dirk Hasert; and a Norwegian, Hans Christian Ostrø, had disappeared mysteriously while enjoying picnic.


A note released by the kidnappers a day after the kidnappings said: 'Accept our demands or face dire consequences. We are fighting against anti-Islamic forces. Western countries are anti-Islam, and America is the biggest enemy of Islam’. Childs was presumably let off, to convey to the world that the hostages were alive and in captivity of the militants. Ostrø was beheaded and his body was found near Saleh village in Aeshmuqam forest range on August 13^th.


The kidnappers demanded release of the jailed Pakistani militant, Maulana Masood Azhar, and 20 other prisoners. Several national and international organisations issued appeals to Al-Faran to release the tourists. Representatives of the embassies of the victims' countries also visited Kashmir frequently to seek their release, without success.
In December 1995, the kidnappers left a note that they were no longer holding the men hostage. They claimed that the hostages had got killed when the Indian troops engaged their kidnappers in a gunbattle.


As months of search, subsequently joined also by Scotland Yard and FBI, yielding nothing, one of the detained masons, Nazir Ahmad of Dabran, revealed to his interrogators in May 1996 that Mangan, Wells, Hutchings, and Hasert had been gunned down and buried by the kidnappers near Mati Gawran village in Kokernag. According to his statement, Harkatul Ansar’s local commander Javed Dabrani and Hameed Turki got killed in an encounter between the Indian Army and militants in close vicinity of their hideout on December 13th, 1995. He claimed that immediately after the death of the commanders, HUA militants gunned down all the four hostages and got them buried. Nazir led then IGP Kashmir, P S Gill, and other Police officers to the area but failed to identify the ‘spot of burial’.


Published after 16 years, “The Meadow” alleges that the Indian officials’ actions were part of a larger plan to present Pakistan, and the Pakistan-backed insurgency in Kashmir, in as harsh a light as possible to the world. Ultimately, the men were killed by a second group, funded and controlled by the Indian government, the book alleges. It claims that a local woman approached an Army officer with the information that she had sighted the German hostage, Dirk Hasert. But, rather than moving out to recover the hostages, he sexually assaulted the woman and covered up things for weeks until all the hostages got killed, claims the book.


“All the time New Delhi said it was trying to crack Al Faran, a group within intelligence and the STF (Special Task Force, an Indian Police division) was letting them dangle, happy to let the militants portray themselves as savage criminals,” a Police investigator, who worked on the case, is claimed to have told the authors. He remains unidentified.


The book contains purportedly the blow-by-blow descriptions of the negotiations for the hostages’ release between an inspector and the kidnappers, which seemed to be nearly completed several times, only to be blown apart when the agreed terms of the negotiations were leaked to newspapers, including the Hindustan Times, infuriating the kidnappers. At times when the Indian government claimed the kidnappers and their hostages were untraceable, the book says, they were being watched and photographed by an Indian Army helicopter.


A member of the Crime Branch team who worked on the case describes the “dawning realization that their desire to solve the crime was at odds with the goals of some senior figures in the military and the intelligence services, who could have saved the hostages but chose not to.”


The book points fingers at the central government. An official of the Security Wing of J&K Police then working with Governor K V Krishna Rao’s Advisor Security, who has been identified in the book as Altaf Ahmad is quoted to have told the authors: “Right from the beginning the strings were being pulled from New Delhi. Those of us dealing with the hostage-taking on the ground in Srinigar were not in control.”


India’s top officials aren’t the only ones “The Meadow” lays blame on. Woven into the nearly 500-page book are a number of blunders and miscalculations allegedly made by Indian and foreign officials: the area in Kashmir was not cleared of backpackers after the first kidnappings because of Amarnath pilgrimage in the area; a woman’s sighting of German Dirk Hasert’s kidnapping was not reported immediately because the Indian Army officer the woman approached sexually assaulted her and the Army was trying to hush that assault up; instead of allowing escaped hostage John Childs to lead police to the kidnappers, as he wanted to, American officials whisked him out of the country.


Officials in Srinagar, Jammu and New Delhi are unlikely to swallow what has been written in the book published in USA. Then IGP of CID in J&K Government, Rajinder Tikoo, had headed a team of Police officials who claimed to be interacting with the kidnappers for several days over radio from Shankar Acharya hilltop in Srinagar. Radio intercepts of the conversation, never contested by authorities, later appeared in India Today magazine. Even as the officials, and many of the journalists who covered the kidnapping drama, insist that the hostages were never spotted, traced or photographed till they were suspected to have been done to death in Kokernag,


Valley’s separatist circles and groups claiming to be working for human rights could, on the other hand, set off a fresh hullabaloo over contents of the book, particularly the allegations of rape and the government agencies stage managing  a theatre to discredit Pakistan, Kashmiri militants and the separatists.


END

Mercy Corps Program Director deported to USA

All foreign NGOs put under security scanner in J&K on MHA’s notice

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 11: Kashmir Program Director of the American non-profit organisation, Mercy Corps, Usman Rahim, has been deported to USA after working on different projects in coordination with the state and the central governments for nearly eight years. With this dramatic development, authorities have put all the foreign NGOs under a high security scanner.

According to authoritative sources, customs and immigration authorities on Indira Gandhi International Airport stopped 42-year-old Usman Rahim who was returning to New Delhi in a flight from Dubai on March 9^th. With an entry on his American Passport, Mr Usman was sent back to USA via Dubai. If these highly placed official sources are to be believed, the immigration authorities recorded on Mr Usman’s passport that his activities in India had been “not consistent with the visa granted to him” from time to time.

Usman’s wife, Nafeesa, who is a British national, has been left alone in Srinagar. Sources said that nobody from the government asked her either to leave the country or stay back in Srinagar. Efforts to contact her for comments failed.

A senior Police official of the rank of IGP confirmed to Early Times that Mr Usman has been “sent back” from IGI Airport on March 9^th. “That has been done by the Government of India and they have not shared any details or reasons of his deportation with us”, said the Police official. He believed that authorities in the Central government would not have sent Usman Rahim back until there were compelling reasons or adverse information about his activities. He maintained that the American national had never figured in any negative list of J&K Government while working for a Portland-based NGO in the Valley in the last nearly eight years.

Yet another official, associated with security, revealed that immediately after Usman Rahim’s deportation, all the foreign NGOs operating in J&K, including the foreign nationals staying in the state for more than three years, had been put under surveillance on the notice of union Ministry of Home Affairs. He said that reports were being verified which suggested that Usman was deported after a Central intelligence agency observed that a number of foreigners, particularly Americans, working with different NGOs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, had visited Kashmir and stayed with Usman.

This is for the first time that a foreign NGO operator has been sent back and prevented physically from proceeding to Kashmir. More significant has been complete silence on the deportation of the American national by both, Government of India as well as the American Embassy in New Delhi. Interestingly, Mr Usman has been viewed as “persona non grata” after eight years of his continuous working in Kashmir. His projects in agriculture, environment and employment sector have been promoted by the state and the central governments over the years. It was Usman Rahim who got American singer Terra Noami to Srinagar two years back and organized a mega concert for her with facilitation of the state government at SKICC. She also picturized a couple of songs on global warming and ecology at Gulmarg and other places.

Usman had first appeared in Srinagar during the post-earthquake relief operations in 2005. In the last seven years, his NGO Mercy Corps worked extensively in rural areas, including border areas. According to well-placed official sources, he had remained continuously in touch with the state as well as the Central governments and had established an extensive network of unemployed youth. He worked prominently to promote Omar Abdullah government’s flagship employment programme, SKEWPY, in coordination with Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI).

According to these sources, Usman had “over a hundred times” met Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, a number of his Cabinet Ministers, including Abdul Rahim Rather, Nasir Aslam Wani and Ghulam Hassan Mir, Governor N N Vohra, a number of officials of the union Ministry of Home Affairs, including two Home Secretaries and Joint Secretary (J&K) Mr K Skandan. Unconfirmed reports insisted that he had also met union Home Minister P Chidambaram. In Srinagar, he was known for his intimate liaison with senior Government officials including top Police officials, civil society groups and mediapersons.

Prior to his joining Mercy Corps and operating developmental programmes in Kashmir, Usman had remained closely associated in USA with the JKLF Chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik, who reportedly got him into contact with businessman Mansoor Ijaz. It was Usman who introduced Malik in different wings of UN as also several Universities and thinktanks in USA over a decade ago. However, during his staying in Valley, he had apparently distanced himself from Malik and other separatist leaders.

Even as the grapevine of Usman’s figuring as a “CIA agent” has been thickening in Srinagar with every passing day, authorities as well as Mercy Corps have remained tightlipped over his deportation.

END

Law of jungle prevails in Sagar’s Law Department

PSC selects Law Secretary’s low-merit son as PLO; selection in a sealed cover

Early Times Report

JAMMU, Apr 7: With the firm belief that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah does neither read nor respect Early Times, his audacious establishment is understood to have selected Law Secretary’s son as a Public Law Officer (PLO) despite revelation of a scandal in this newspaper in April last year. A section of bureaucracy, involving officials of Law Department and Public Service Commission (PSC), are said to have played key role in the whole operation of nepotism.

Knowledgeable sources revealed to Early Times that without getting disturbed by revelation of a scandal in this newspaper on 15-04-2011, PSC authorities went ahead and manipulated the selection of Law Secretary Ghulam Hassan Tantray’s son as PLO. Despite clinching evidences of manipulation, Suhail Hassan Tantray was interviewed on 16-4-2011 and placed among the candidates selected for appointment as Assistant Legal Remembrancer/ Public Law Officer. According to these sources, the selection has not been notified and the same was in a sealed cover due to litigation between some candidates and the PSC.

“Despite his low merit, Law Secretary’s son has been selected and the selection would be notified as and when stay order expired”, said a source. He claimed that the officials of Law Department and PSC, who were brazenly conducting the operation of appointing Law Secretary’s son, had been immensely encouraged by one of Chief Minister’s Tweets. CM had questioned Early Times’ credibility in the Tweet when some of his followers had drawn his attention to the selection of low merit candidates as exposed exclusively in this newspaper in March 2011. CM remained stiff even as J&K High Court later terminated the selection of Veterinary Assistant Surgeons completely. PSC even went in appeal to DB but was defeated by the petitioner candidates. PSC has now started fresh process of selection of assistant veterinary surgeons.

As reported in this daily last year, PSC had allegedly lowered the cut-off marks in a manner that Law Secretary’s son, who stood below the cut-off, was called for interview and considered for appointment. Two of the female candidates from Valley had alleged that their names were removed from the merit shortlist for not genuine reasons.

While pushing through the process of appointing Law Secretary’s son, officials of Law Department functioning under Mr Ali Mohammad Sagar created another example of nepotism when Suhail Hassan Tantray was also appointed as the Government’s standing council as many as two times in three years.

Not satisfied with that, junior Tantray also appeared in the competition when Law Department referred some posts of Assistant Draftsman (Translation) to PSC and the process of selection began last year.

While inordinately delaying Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting and sitting over the elevation of Legal Assistants, Law Secretary also referred certain direct quota posts of Legal Assistants, in the highest non-gazeted pay scale of Rs 9300- Rs 34800 with Grade Pay of Rs 4250, to State Subordinate Services Recruitment Board last year. Sources said that an officer of the rank of Additional Secretary, currently posted on deputation with State Human Rights Commission, was assigned the responsibility of selecting the Law Secretary’s son. Sources identified the officer as Tariq Ahmad Banday and said that it was not possible for the subordinate to turn down the desire of his controlling officer.

When SSRB notification came out on March 19^th, 2012, Law Secretary’s son, Suhail Hassan Tantray, was among the 10 candidates selected as Legal Assistant in Open Merit category. He was asked by Law Department to join in the office of Director Litigation in Srinagar.

Let there be a Tweet, if not an inquiry or action, honourable Chief Minister in this rank nepotism in Mr Sagar’s Law Department. For sure, it would be: “bureaucrats’ wards can also have merit to get selected. they can’t suffer for their relation to their fathers!”.

END

Dilbagh, Sahai in no hurry to become Addl DGP

Valley’s first SPS officer becomes eligible for top ranking Police position

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

JAMMU, Apr 2: Sheikh Owais Ahmad, currently Inspector General of Police, Personnel and Training, at J&K Police Headquarters, is the first incumbent from State Police Service (SPS) who has become eligible for the top ranking position of Additional Director General of Police in Jammu & Kashmir. Three others, who have attained eligibility to become ADG on January 1^st, 2012, are all regular recruits (RRs) of Indian Police Service (IPS). They include IGP of Jammu, Dilbagh Singh, and IGP of Kashmir zone, Shiv Murari Sahai.

With over three years of his service left, Sheikh Owais is likely to get the distinction of becoming first ADG from the SPS. He appeared in Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) examination in 1977 and was allotted Kashmir Police Service (KPS). On completion of 15 years of his gazetted service, he was inducted into IPS in 1992 with 1987 as his year of allotment.

Both, Dilbagh Singh (Punjab) and Sahai (UP) are non-state subjects who are IPS officers of the year 1987. While as Dilbagh was appointed as IGP of Jammu zone in December 2010, Sahai was appointed as IGP of Kashmir zone in the turbulent times of August 2010. Previously too, he had served a term as IGP of Kashmir. Third of the RRs, who has become eligible after completion of 25 years of service in January this year, is V K Singh, also a non-state subject from UP. Currently posted in Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) in Singapore, Singh is completing five years of Central deputation in June this year.

With V K Singh reportedly inclined to seek extension to his deputation, neither Dibagh nor Sahai seem to be in a hurry to rise to the top ranking position of ADG. Both are holding the most sought positions of the rank of IGP of Jammu and Kashmir zones respectively and neither of them has completed two years of the tenure. According to well-placed authoritative sources, Government itself is in no hurry to hold the much awaited Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting and pave the way for the four IPS officers’ elevation to the rank of ADG. After the DPC clearance, cabinet sanction to the appointment remains just a formality.

“Had the three RRs (Dilbagh Singh, Sahai and VK Singh) been on insignificant postings, DPC would have happened and all of them would have been functioning today as ADG. Owais Sahab is, obviously, the only officer interested in the DPC meeting”, said a middle-rung Police officer. He suggested that none of the three RRs would complain even if the DPC was not held in the next two years. DGP Kuldeep Khoda’s retirement on May 31, 2012, is said to be another reason of a prolonged status quo at the zonal PHQ level. In other words, an early DPC and resultant promotion of Dilbagh and Sahai, coupled with DGP’s retirement, would mean complete reshuffle in Executive Police at all two of its top most rungs. If that happened, in June this year, there would be not only a new DGP in J&K but also new IGPs in Kashmir as well as Jammu executive Police zones. It remains continuously unclear whether Omar Abdullah government was thinking about getting an outsider or one among the two senior most ADGs, K Rajendra Kumar and P L Gupta, would be appointed as the new DGP despite falling short of the 30 years of service in IPS.

“Our IAS lobby is least impatient on the DPC as none of the RRs is pushing the case of elevation”, a middle-ranking KAS officer observed.

However, Principal Secretary Home, B R Sharma, earlier told this newspaper that the state government was keen to hold the DPC and order the promotions as quickly as possible. According to him, previously scheduled DPC got canceled due to the fact that an investiture ceremony, attended by entire top brass of the government including Governor and Chief Minister, clashed with the date. When asked about the new date, Mr Sharma said that Chief Secretary would soon convey it to the Home Department. CS functions as head of the three-member DPC with Principal Secretary Home, B R Sharma, and DGP, Kuldeep Khoda, being its members.

Previously, two of the state police officers, namely S S Wazir and Masud Choudhary, had reached the rank of ADG but neither of them was from SPS as the service was introduced in 1972. Both were from Jammu division. While as Mr Masud Choudhary had been directly appointed as Dy SP by Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq’s government in 1967, Mr Wazir had been similarly appointed---without appearing in IPS or any other competitive examination---in 1961. Two of the similarly appointed Dy SPs, namely Mr Manmohan Khajuria and Mr Ghulam Jeelani Pandit, even reached the highest rank of DGP. Mr Javed Makhdoomi came from the first batch of SPS (KAS-1972) but he retired only as IGP. With this background, as and when elevated, Mr Owais would become the first from SPS to reach the top rank of ADG.

END

B R E A K I N G    N E W S   [11.30 pm March 30]

Police claim to have solved Bijbehara blast; Hizb ultra Lateef Dar wanted, Abbas Dar’s 2 associates arrested

Aircel manager had allegedly provided 5 SIMs to Lashkar ultras

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Mar 30: If highly placed authoritative sources are to be believed, Police have solved the March 22 highway blast at Bijbehara in which driver of the ill-fated car had died and 17 others had sustained injuries. According to the Police investigation, Hizbul Mujahideen’s top wanted local militant, Lateef Dar, had helped the three Lashkar-e-Tayyiba operatives in fabricating and planting the IED and one of Aircel’s Territorial Managers had provided them five SIM cards for targeting an Army convoy and causing the explosion.

Early Times learned from authoritative sources this evening Bijbehara Police have arrested the slain militant Altaf’s brother, Tariq Ahmad and Mudassar Iqbal, who has done Bachelors in Civil Engineering, and recovered from them material and electronic evidences suggesting their involvement in the Bijbehara blast. Both are fellow villagers of Abbas Dar of Gadikhal, Awantipore, who was blown into pieces while driving a Maruti car near Bijbehara Police Station on Srinagar-Jammu highway on March 22.

According to sources, Hizbul Mujahideen’s top wanted militant, Lateef Dar of Punzgam---whose brother Rayees Kachru had died in an encounter in Shopian in November 2008---had provided potassium nitrate and other material to Abbas, Tariq and Mudassar. An IED had been fabricated and planted in the car at Jangal Naar in Awantipore area, in vicinity of Army’s Victor Force headquarters in Pulwama district of South Kashmir. However, during the night intervening March 21/22, Abbas had stayed at a hospital in Srinagar.

Dreaded militant Rayees Kachru, who finally died in an encounter in Shopian on the day of polling during Assembly Elections of November 2008, was involved in a number of militancy related incidents including a powerful blast in which he had destroyed a civilian Tata Sumo hired by Army at Nayina Batpora, killing the driver alongwith all the ten soldiers traveling in it. Months after his death, Lateef had disappeared and reportedly joined his brother’s organization---Hizbul Mujahideen.

According to Police, Abbas, Mudassar and Tariq had previously figured in some militancy related incidents including the blast of a Police bus near Srinagar Central Jail and another blast at Wuyan in Pampore area. In 2004, Mudassar had been arrested by SOG Srinagar but later released. Even as Tariq has not been booked till date in Bijbehara blast, Mudassar is said to have revealed to his interrogators how the IED had been fabricated, planted in the car and handed over to Abbas Dar. However, before parking the car near Bijbehara Police Station, the IED went off. The car as well as its driver, Abbas Dar, had been blown into pieces. Seventeen others, including three CRPF men of Road Opening Party (ROP), were among the injured.

According to sources, Police learned during investigation that civil engineer Mudassar Iqbal had played key role in arranging the material and other logistics for the car bomb blast. Private telecom company Aircel’s Territorial Manager for Awantipore, Basharat Saleem of Rainawari Srinagar, figured as the man who had provided five SIM cards to the militants for causing the blast. Basharat, alongwith another person working with Aircel, have been arrested. Police have launched a manhunt for the Hizbul Mujahideen fugitive Lateef Dar who is still at large. Sources said that some cellphones and SIM cards have been recovered and the disclosures of Mudassar and Tariq have been largely corroborated.

END

Kashmir ‘shrine believers’ challenge radical Islamists from heart of Srinagar

’85-90 pc Valley Muslims have reverence for saints and shrines’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Mar 23: Wittingly or unwittingly timed on “Yaum-e-Pakistan”, a conglomerate of Muslim religious outfits today organized its show of strength at Batmaloo, heart of the congested Capital city. Unfazed by an armed attack on its prominent functionary, Pir Jalal-ud-din, Muttahida Ulema-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat w-al-Jamaat (MUASWJ) sought a thorough investigation into all guerrilla strikes on ‘believers of saints and shrines’.

Close on the heels of two mysterious shootouts at Sarai Bala and Batmaloo, MUASWJ organized a march of its followers in vicinity of the revered shrine of Batmaloo Sahab. Most prominent exponents of this nascent religious movement, including the Karwaan-e-Islami founder Maulana Ghulam Rasool Haami, led the march and later addressed a news conference on the shrine premises. With most of the Valley’s separatist religious and political leaders, including hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, enjoying an at home at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on occasion of Pakistan’s national day, the green-turban alliance claimed in the heart of Srinagar that 85 to 90 percent of Kashmiri Muslims believed in saints and shrines.

MUASWJ leaders complained that the spiritual leaders believing in saints and shrines were being targeted under a concerted campaign in the Valley. They claimed that all attacks on the moderate religious leaders and spiritual activists, from the one on Qazi Nisar in Anantnag in June 1994 to the latest on Pir Jalal-ud-din in Srinagar, in March 2012, had happened in a chain. The motive, according to them, was to browbeat, terrorise and silence the voice of the shrine believers (Ahl-e-Aetiquaad) in the Valley.

The MUASWJ speakers claimed that Mirwaiz Qazi Nisar of Anantnag, saint Ahad Sahab of Sopore, Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, Maulana Abdul Rashid Dawoodi and now Maulana Jalal-ud-din of Batmaloo had been attacked with guns and grenades on account of their unflinching faith and belief in shrines and spiritual leaders and promotion of this school of thought in Kashmir. They described it “most shocking” that recent terror attack on Jalal-ud-din had happened when he was making preparations for a Meelaad procession (a rally to celebrate the birth day of Prophet Mohammad) in Batmaloo. Jalal-ud-din, who had sustained gunshots on his body, is still under treatment at SKIMS, Soura.

Much-revered saint Ahad Sahab of Sopore, who had a miraculous escape in a grenade attack on him nearly six years back, died natural death in 2010. His followers included senior politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, advocates and judges including a judge of J&K High Court. Several of Maulana Dawoodi’s followers had died and sustained injuries when he came under a fatal grenade attack at Tahab in Pulwama district few years back.

Maulana Haami and Dawoodi, who have established substantial base in the Valley in the last 10 years, are known as the leading proponents of Bareillvi school of thought. Even after a series of guerrilla attacks on them, they have been organizing massive processions and openly challenging the hardliners and all those not believing in spiritual leaders and Muslim shrines. Of late, Government has been providing them support, overtly and covertly, which has made them suspects in the eyes of Valley’s radical separatist and religious leadership.

Hardliners have been publicly condemning the guerrilla attacks on these spiritual leaders and emphasizing that were aimed at dividing the Kashmiri Muslims on sectarian and ideological basis and thus “weakening the freedom struggle”. In his recent reaction, Geelani has condemned the attack on Jalal-ud-din and said that he would have called on him “if not held continuously under house arrest” by Police.

Addressing today’s news conference, Maulana Haami sought thorough investigation into the attack on Jalal-ud-din and demanded that the assailants be unmasked and produced in the “peoples’ court”. He said that Police and the militant outfits should investigate the attack on the pattern of the assassination of Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadith chief Maulana Shaukat Shah and punish the culprits. Haami alleged that certain forces were at work to create the culture of devastation and killings on sectarian basis. He asked the intelligentsia to get together and defeat such elements with complete unity.

Later, the organizers led a rally from the shrine of Sheikh Dawood Batmaloo Sahab. The participants chanted purely religious slogans and avoided reference to Kashmir’s separatist political movement and those dying for “freedom”. Religious processions organized by separatist religious leaders, like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Aga Syed Hassan of Budgam do invariably pay tributes to the “martyrs” and call for Kashmir’s “freedom from India”.

END

One killed, 17 injured in highway car blast at Bijbehara

Police station, 100 shops damaged; 3 CRPF men among injured

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Mar 22: Twenty-five-year-old driver of a Maruti car was blown into pieces when a powerful bomb blast occurred in his vehicle, close to Police Station at the highway township of Bijbehara, in south Kashmir, today. SSP Awantipora maintained that the deceased was an overground worker (OWG) of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, who died while targeting an Army convoy, but SSP Anantnag described him as a “civilian with no adverse history”. Seventeen persons, including three personnel of a CRPF road opening party (ROP), sustained injuries in the same explosion that also caused extensive damage to the police station and over a hundred shops.

Informed sources said that an extremely powerful car blast occurred on Srinagar-Jammu national highway, close to Police Station, in a crowded market at Bijbehara, about 45 Km from Srinagar, in the afternoon today. Driver of the ill-fated Maruti car died as he was blown into pieces and 17 others sustained injuries. This kind of a deafening explosion happened on the highway after years of peace and tranquility in Kashmir.

SSP Anantnag, Ramesh Kumar Jalla, told Early Times over telephone that the blast inside the Maruti-800 occurred at 3.32 p.m, minutes before the daily convoy of Army from Jammu to Srinagar, was to have passed through Bijbehara. He said that the slowly moving car from Anantnag to Srinagar blasted with a deafening explosion, just 20 to 25 yards short of Police Station of Bijbehara. Mangled remains of the car, alongwith pieces of the organs of the driver, were found littered in a radius of 50 yards. He said for about two hours, Police and civilians failed to understand anything about the make of the vehicle and the people killed in the blast as parts of both were beyond any recognition.

Later, Police recovered a cellphone, one ATM card of Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd and a voter’s photo-identity card issued by Election Commission of India. It described the holder as Mohammad Abbas Dar S/o Mohammad Amin Dar R/o Gadikhal, Chursoo, Awantipore. A Police party rushed to the village in Pulwama district and found the identity was real. According to SSP Anantnag, one of the brothers of the deceased, as also his cousin working in JAKLI of Army, identified him as Mohammad Abbas Dar of Gadikhal village.

Parts of the dead body were collected and handed over to members of Dar’s family who mourned his death and later conducted his funeral at Gadikhal, Awantipore. Police learned from residents that the deceased was a 25-year-old civilian who had completed his Bachelor of Arts from Government Degree College, Tral, and was trying to get admission in a post-graduation course at Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipore.

Later, Early Times learned from informed sources that father of the deceased, namely Mohammad Amin Dar was working as a Supervisor in Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) department, his elder brother Mohammad Shafi Dar was working with Home Guard wing of J&K Police, another brother Javed Ahmad Dar was owner-cum-driver of a Tata-Sumo taxi and the third brother, Yousuf Dar, was a truck driver. Youngest of the siblings was a married woman and their mother was a housewife.

SSP Anantnag said that the blast caused extensive damage to the nearby Police Station besides over a hundred shops on either side of the road. At least six vehicles, parked as well as those in movement, were also damaged. He said that 17 persons, including three ROP personnel of CRPF 90 Bn, sustained injuries. The injured were quickly evacuated and rushed to different hospitals for medical treatment. SSP Jalla, as well as Medical Superintendent of SKIMS, Soura, Dr Syed Amin Tabish, maintained that out the ten persons admitted to SKIMS, only one was critical. He was identified as Arif Hussain Waza S/o Abdul Rashid Waza R/o Bijbehara.

Late tonight, Dr Tabish said that Arif successfully underwent a surgical procedure and he had now good prospects of recovery. He said that five persons were still under treatment and observation and four others had been discharged in the evening. SSP Jalla denied agency reports that the death toll had reached two. He asserted that the deceased was a civilian who, according to Police records and residents, had no history of involvement with militancy, counter-insurgency or politics. He said that Police had registered the matter and started investigation into the circumstances that led to the blast.

“We are further checking antecedents of the deceased and working on different theories”, SSP Jalla said. According to him, eyewitnesses revealed that the ill-fated Maruti car came from the main market and it slowed down to speed of about 5 km/hour, some 30 to 40 yards short of the Police Station. Suddenly, there was an extremely powerful blast, killing the driver. He said that the car seemed to be a stolen one as its chassis plate was found removed and the engine number obliterated and embossed afresh. Part of a number plate read “JK02V”.

Lashkar OGW?

SP Awantipore, Mohammad Irshad, however, claimed that the deceased, Mohammad Abbas Dar, had functioned as an OWG with Lashkar-e-Tayyiba militant outfit for several years and, according to him, he had figured among the wanted suspects even in the current year.

“We have reasons to believe that Abbas Dar got killed while attempting to plant his IED-laden car to target the incoming Army convoy on the highway”, SP Awantipore told Early Times. Quoting Police records, SP Awantipore said that Abbas had closely worked as OGW with two militants, namely Altaf and Mudassar alias Doctor, both members of lashkar and residents of Gadikhal village. While as Altaf got killed in an encounter with security forces at Andrus, Pulwama, in 2009, Mudassar died in another gunbattle in early 2010. Both the slain militants, as well as Abbas, according to SP Awantipore, were involved in a number of terrorist activities including a major IED blast that ripped a vehicle of Pulwama Police outside Central Jail in Srinagar few years back.

Late tonight, informed sources further revealed that Police had seized Abbas Dar’s cellphone. Call details and tower location statements indicated that he had spent a night in Srinagar and had returned to Bijbehara, via Awantipore, in the forenoon. He had switched off his cellphone somewhere near Awantipore. Three SIM cards were found to have been used in the same phone set.

“At this stage, we believe that one of these SIM cards was to have been used to cause the blast. It is possible that the driver mishandled a device or the person holding the remote device (cellphone with a SIM card), pushed a button before the car was parked”, said an official. He said, as a matter of routine, Jammu-Srinagar Army convoy daily passes through Bijbehara between 3.30 p.m and 4.30 p.m.

END