Family members of several active and slain militants, Over Ground Workers (OGW) and apple traders in Kashmir are under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) scanner as the national agency on Monday continued to pursue the case of recently arrested Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) Devinder Singh’s links with militant outfits.
Singh was arrested on January 11 while ferrying three militants, including Hizb-ul- Mujahideen commander Syed Naveeed Mushtaq alias Babu, on the Srinagar-Jammu highway and planning to shift them to safer locations in Jammu and Delhi.
Around 40 members of the NIA are camping in Kashmir and for the third consecutive day on Monday, multiple teams of the NIA raided several localities and questioned many in north and south Kashmir, including the ancestral house of Singh in Pulwama's Tral.
An official said the house at Ovary Gund village was searched. Locals said Singh was “not a very frequent visitor to Tral” after he shifted to Srinagar, where he reportedly owned two houses. According to the police, around Rs. 12 lakh was recovered from the house of Singh in Indira Nagar earlier.
The NIA teams raided the house of militant Shamsul Mengnoo, who was killed in January 2019 in an encounter, in Shopian. Mengnoo, a brother of 2012 batch IPS officer, was pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Unani medicine in a Srinagar college before joining militancy.
Officials said Farooq Ahmad Thokar, an OGW (a term coined by the security agencies for civilians supporting militants), was questioned for his links with militants. The house of Omar Dhobi, an active militant from Shopian, was searched.
The NIA has also shifted its focus to north Kashmir, where the house of a Power Development Department (PDD) employee was raided. The house of Fayaz Mir, a Hizbul Mujahideen militant arrested on January 30 from Kupwara’s Mir Mohalla Bumhama, was also raided.
Officials said the NIA seized a laptop, two mobile phones, two pen-drives and five passports from the residence of the PDD employee.
4 JeM ultras held
The J&K police said four Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) associates were held from Pulwama's Awantipora area.
The police identified them as Mohammad Amin, Mohammad Rafiq and Fayaz Lone, all residents of Khrew, and Maqbool Dar, a resident of Awantipora.
“They are involved in assisting militants. They were providing logistic support and shelter to the active terrorists of JeM, including JeM commander Qari Yasir and his other terror associates, who were recently killed in an encounter at Awantipora”, the police said.
Cases under relevant sections of law stand registered at respective police stations and further investigation in the matter is in progress.
Police are also investigating the role of four other persons for their involvement in supporting terror related activities in the area and providing support to active terrorists.
