With removal of CRPF bunker, ASI gunned down in Srinagar

Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, JKIF claim responsibility of the broad daylight cop killing

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 20: Even as Omar Abdullah government was busy in removing a 20-year-old CRPF bunker at Lalchowk and celebrating the “victory”, unidentified gunmen shot dead an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police (ASI) in broad daylight near Safakadal in the capital city today. With many in the town expecting mainstream politicians to lay the blame on security forces, two militant outfits---Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen and J&K Islamic Front (JKIF)--- claimed responsibility of the ASI’s killing.

Superintendent of Police, North, in Srinagar city, Shaukat Sarwar, told Early times that an unidentified gunman, widely believed to be a Kashmiri militant, fired four pistol shots in point blank range on the back of ASI Sukhpal Singh, posted at Police Division Bagyas under jurisdiction of Police Station Safakadal, when he was regulating heavy rush of vehicular traffic at Darishkadal, Safakadal, at 9.40 a.m. All four of the gunshots got pumped into the ASI’s body and he fell in a pool of blood.

Even as the ASI was on duty alongwith two more of his colleagues, the shootout led to a stampede. By the time, the critically wounded ASI was evacuated and admitted to the nearby SMHS Hospital, he had suffered extensive blood loss. Within half-an-hour, doctors declared him dead. His body was carried to District Police Lines (DPL) Srinagar where a wreath-laying ceremony took place. Minister of State for Home, Nasir Aslam Wani, IGP Kashmir, S M Sahai, besides senior officers of Police and paramilitary forces paid floral tributes to the slain ASI.

Sources said that dead body of the 50-year-old ASI, who is survived by his parents, wife and children, was later carried all the way to his residential village of Chatusa, Rafiabad, in Baramulla district for funeral rites.

Broad daylight killing of the Police official happened after months of calm and beginning of a bustling tourist season. Last time, such kind of an incident had occurred at Telbal Adda in Hazratbal area when suspected militants had shot dead Constable Sajjad Ahmad of IRP 19^th Bn.

Today’s firing happened within hours of the removal of a 20-year-old CRPF bunker at the business hub of Lalchowk. As Ministers and Police officials were still busy in issuing statements of “victory” and claiming credit for making the capital city free of bunkers and paramilitary forces, suspected militants struck on the ASI at Safakadal.

Even as most of the residents appeared to be indifferent to both---removal of bunker as well as killing of the ASI---quite a number in politics, media and other institutions were not readily inclined to accept today’s shootout as a militants’ handiwork. Journalists were even trying more to contact NC’s leader Dr Mustafa Kamal more than the senior Police officials for comments as they expected the ruling party’s MLA to blame security forces for the “mischief”. In recent past, mainstream politicians like Dr Kamal have been holding security forces responsible for certain guerrilla actions allegedly for the purpose of justifying their continued presence and J&K Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

However, setting aside many of the speculations, two militant outfits, one after another, claimed responsibility for the ASI’s killing. KNS reported that Jamiatul Mujahideen’s spokesman, Jameel Ahmad, and J&K Islamic Front’s Sheikh Jamsheed claimed over telephone separately that militants of their respective organisations had gunned down the ASI.

SP of Special Operations Group (SOG) Srinagar, Tahir Sajjad Bhat, said that Police were working on different inputs to identify and arrest the killer. He said that no raids had been conducted and nobody had been arrested till late tonight. He said that Police interacted with some passers-by and by-standers but none of them was in a position to give any description of the incident or the gunman.

SP North, Shaukat Sarwar, said that Police had received certain clues with regard to identification of the killer and his organisation and hideouts. He said that Police would launch an operation to arrest the killer anytime from tonight. He too asserted that no arrests had taken place. However, residents of Safakadal alleged that Police arrested an auto-driver, namely Imtiyaz Ahmad Burza, of their neighbourhood. They met officials and demanded Burza’s release with the claim that he was innocent and had no knowledge about the killer or involvement in the killing.

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CS needs to end monopoly in Civil Secretariat

GAD, Law, other key departments need to be refurbished

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Apr 17: ‘Mafia raj’ at Civil Secretariat seemed to be threatened with the appointment of a no-nonsense IAS officer, Madhav Lal, as Chief Secretary in Jammu and Kashmir in February 2011. A full year on, status quo is ruling the roost as it did for years, notwithstanding tantrums of successive Chief Ministers who vowed to demonopolise the services and the departments.

Madhav Lal’s entry happened at a time when contempt to rules, norms, Cabinet orders and the government policies had become order of the day. Outgoing Chief Secretary, S S Kapur, had arranged re-employment or service extension of as many as 87 retired officials in Omar Abdullah government. He was publicly accused of promoting re-employments for the purpose of engineering his own post-retirement rehabilitation as Chairman of State Accountability Commission, State Information Commission or State Vigilance Commission. He retired unceremoniously when media raised a clamour and had to return home disappointed.

Among other evils, Kapur had failed to stop relatives of nearly a dozen Ministers to sneak into their Personal Sections as OSDs, Private Secretaries, Special Assistants and Public Relations Officers. It was during his tenure that bureaucracy sat over sanction to prosecution of influential KAS, IAS and other officers who had been implicated in corruption related matters amid tall claims at the highest offices in the state. None of them was touched, even as courts refused to grant them anticipatory bails.

It was again in Kapur’s tenure that old fossils of bureaucracy stuck to their musical chairs firmly in key departments at Civil Secretariat, even after holding a post for years and decades. One of the senior KAS officers created a record of having joined the General Administration Department in 1984 as Under Secretary and retiring in the same department, without a single transfer order in 26 years, as Special Secretary in 2010. He was among 90-odd “indispensables” decorated with a re-employment. Favouritism and nepotism in induction of officials into KAS had already grown as a cancer in successive governments.

Madhav Lal seemed to be asserting when he removed one of such backdoor entrants and shifted him to an insignificant posting in Poonch. Within weeks, the official, with the support of his mentors, managed to return to a posting in Jammu. Chief Secretary put his foot down and sent him back to Poonch. But, he has yet to submit his report on the controversial appointment and KAS induction of the same official to Speaker of Legislative Assembly who desired a quick action.

The rot remains to be arrested in the field of inducting favourites in the so-called Technical Quota of KAS. Chief Secretary’s assertions had generated a ray of hope among the dutiful in bureaucracy as he looked bitterly critical of a particular KAS officer’s induction into IAS, leading to massive heartburn in the services.

Ruffling feathers among the masses in general and the services in particular, Government disclosed in recent session of legislature that that as many as 147 retired officials had been granted re-employment and extension in service in the last three years. It became clear that poor Kapur had been humbled in the controversial post-retirement rehabilitations by the new bureaucratic dispensation. One of the beneficiaries has been declared as “indispensable” and granted re-employment against the highest monthly remuneration of Rs 88,000 just days after he was implicated in a corruption-related matter by State Vigilance Organization. Not one of the Minister’s relatives has moved out of their Personal Section.

In brazen violation of the government policy, selective officials have been served dozens of transfer orders in the last three years. Others are conveniently stuck to their lucrative and prestigious postings for years and decades. GAD, that is responsible for managing the KAS and IAS services, has become the worst casualty alongwith Department of Law and few other departments.

Recent appointment of the topper of KAS batch-1984, Sheikh Mushtaq Ahmad, has been widely appreciated across all bureaucratic and political cross-sections. Those having served in the department previously for years and lobbying hard to return to the key GAD have not been obliged, rightly. But, pulls and pressures are still underway to win ‘prize postings’ for a number of controversial KAS and IAS officers, known for pursuing their personal agenda.

Department of Law, nevertheless, continues to be the fiefdom of ‘old fossils’. Even after their induction into IAS, bureaucrats have remained untouched and unchanged. This has led to lobbyism and ‘mafia raj’ in the senior administrative services. Ministers and bureaucrats, who have been loudly saying that nobody was indispensable, have perpetuated an ignominious status qua in this key department. The policy framed by Law Department and adopted by the Cabinet says that officials should hold a posting for a minimum of two years and maximum of three years.

Even after veterans like late Ghulam Mohammad Thakur served effectively as Law Secretary and later rose to more coveted positions in GAD and Public Service Commission, many of the previous regimes did boldly break the mafia raj in Law Department.

Late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah got then District and Sessions Judge, Ghulam Hassan Nehvi, in 1976-77 and appointed him as Law Secretary. Later, another District & Sessions Judge, O P Sharma, also served a tenure as Law Secretary.

Years later, Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah got yet another District and Sessions Judge, namely Mohammad Yasin Kawoosa, and appointed him as Law Secretary despite availability of officials in 1987-88. Messers Sharma and Kawoosa later served as judges in J&K High Court. Even Governor Jagmohan got a local District and Sessions judge, Ghulam Ahmad Lone, who functioned as Law Secretary in the worst of time in 1991-92.

Services and governance analysts hold the opinion that judges drawn from judiciary perform in an independent and objective manner as they happen to be neither members of any bureaucratic or political lobby nor function under fear of transfer. They insist that Government would have achieved great credibility for its institutions and the all-important Law Department if an independent judge would have been got on deputation to frame legal opinions and play a leadership role in parliamentary and judicial services development. They would have been under no bag and baggage to engineer backdoor entry of their sons as their successors in Law Department. Wags call it “SRO-43” at Madhav Lal’s Secretariat.

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‘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.

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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