Srinagar: Two suspects, including one woman, were detained in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, May 2, by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in an alleged conspiracy by Pakistan-based outfits to “commit terror acts” and “create communal disharmony” in the union territory, officials said.
Witnesses and locals said that the NIA sleuths, accompanied by local police and CRPF personnel, carried out raids at 12 places in J&K on Tuesday, including in Poonch district where a woman, identified as Shahaz Akhtar, was picked up for questioning from her native Khanetar village, according to reports.
Reports said that the woman was brought to a police station where the NIA sleuths questioned her. It was not immediately known whether she was released or continues to remain in custody. The agency has not issued any statement on the detention.
Last month, one of the worst terror attacks on a moving vehicle of security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir was carried out in Poonch district, which is located along the Line of Control with Pakistan. Five army soldiers lost their lives in the deadly attack while one was critically injured. At least six persons have been arrested in Poonch so far for their alleged involvement in the attack.
During a visit to the district in connection with the ongoing probe in the Bhatta Durian attack, Director General of J&K Police Dilbag Singh said that it was “impossible” for the terrorists to carry out the attack without local support.
Around 200 people have so far been questioned in the case, prompting allegations by former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti that people of Poonch were living under “oppression” in the aftermath of the attack as they were being “arrested, tortured and questioned”.
Meanwhile, an NIA team also swooped down on the double-storied, rundown residence of Mohammad Ramzan Bhat, 65, in Sozieth village, some 14 km from the city centre Lal Chowk in Srinagar, in the wee hours of Tuesday, and detained his son Mohammad Ishaq Bhat. He was later set free.
The raid occurred at around 5:30 am, moments after Dar had returned home after offering morning prayers at a local mosque, catching the entire village off-guard, “I could hear the main gate opening. In no time, nearly a dozen sleuths were outside. One of them knocked on the door,” Ramzan, a farmer, told The Wire.
As Ramzan opened the door, one of the NIA officials pulled out a photo of Ishaq from his pocket, asking Ramzan whether this was his son and his whereabouts, while other officials entered the building. “I told him that he was sleeping and the officer asked me to lead the way to the room,” he said, stressing that the officers were polite throughout the raid.
Ishaq was brought down from the second storey and the agency confiscated his phone along with the mobile devices of all the family members. Barring Ishaq, the devices of all the family members were returned later. “The raid lasted nearly three hours. One officer was continuously penning something on paper. A lady officer was also accompanying them,” Ramzan said.
After searching the house, the NIA sleuths announced that they were detaining Ishaq who was taken to the agency’s local unit in Srinagar’s Church Lane where he was set free on Tuesday afternoon. “There is darkness all around in Kashmir, so I am glad that my son has come back,” Ramzan said, surrounded by nearly a dozen male neighbours who had come to congratulate the family on their son’s release.
“It is really a miracle that he has been released. Otherwise so many Kashmir youth have been arrested and their families came to know about their whereabouts after days or even weeks,” an old man told Ramzan, who nodded in agreement.
Ramzan claimed that the agency didn’t find anything in their house and left empty-handed. “We are a poor family with meagre means. I have four sons but none of them have been involved in stone pelting or militancy. It is because my son was not tainted that he has been returned,” he said.
Ramzan’s double-storied house was raided by the NIA on Tuesday morning in connection with a terrorism case. Photo: Special arrangement
At least 12 locations were searched by the agency on Tuesday with eight of them in Pulwama district and one each in Kulgam, Anantnag and Budgam districts of Kashmir Valley and one in Jammu’s Poonch district. “The raid is under way (sic) in district Poonch in Jammu,” a statement issued by the NIA said.
In Kulgam, the anti-terror agency raided the house of one Abid Rashid Bhat, a baker, who has been arrested in connection with a terrorism case.
The agency said that the raids were carried out in connection with the investigation into an alleged conspiracy “both physical and in cyberspace, and plans by proscribed terrorist organisations to execute violent terrorist attacks in J&K with sticky bombs, IEDs and small arms”.
A suo motu case (RC-05/2022/NIA/JMU) was filed by the agency on June 21, 2022 to probe the alleged conspiracy by the “terrorist groups to commit terror acts in association with local youths/overground workers in order to create communal disharmony in J&K”, the NIA statement said, naming Pakistan-based outfits Laskhar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Al-Badr, Al-Qaeda and their “offshoots” as the perpetrators.
The anti-terror agency claimed in the statement that the investigation has revealed that the unidentified “workers and cadres” of these outfits were allegedly involved in “collection and distribution of sticky bombs or magnetic bombs, IEDs, cash, narcotics and small weapons”.
“These weapons, bombs, narcotics etc were being pushed on to the Indian soil by PaK-based handlers and commanders of proscribed terrorist organisations using drones to the terrorists’ active in the Kashmir valley,” the statement said.
Last year, the agency searched at least 14 locations in the terror conspiracy case including Srinagar, Baramula, Pulwama, Anantnag Budgam and Kathua during which it claimed to have recovered “incriminating material” and digital devices.