New Delhi [India]: The State Investigation Agency (SIA) in Jammu and Kashmir has filed a charge sheet against three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists, including two operating from Pakistan, with the investigation pointing out how Pakistani agencies have been brazenly misusing not only the travel on the basis of valid documents but also the Indian students going to Pakistan for higher studies.
The painstakingly conducted investigation has resulted in the unearthing story of a father who escaped to Pakistan illegally and climbed the seniority ladder in the terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen led by Syed Sallauddin came to be the media advisor looking after the propaganda cell of the terror outfit.
The investigation, which started on November 7, 2021, conducted over the last about six months, assumes importance in the context of the government’s strategy to identify Jammu and Kashmir residents who are hiding in Pakistan and coordinating terrorist and secessionist activities behind the scene from across the border.
SIA filed a charge sheet against three Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen terrorists – Asif Shabir Naik, a resident of Kashtigarh in Doda, his father Shabir Hussain Naik alias Khalid Shabir currently operating from Pakistan and Safdar Hussain alias Ehsan of village Marmat of Doda who too is based in Pakistan.
A Jammu and Kashmir Police release said that Asif Shabir Naik was intercepted in Srinagar airport while trying to escape back to Pakistan on the basis of intelligence inputs that he had been visiting Pakistan posing that he’s a student studying there but was actually visiting terrorists and separatist training facilities.
Asif Shabir Naik is in judicial custody after his arrest and the other two accused – the mastermind Shabir Hussain Naik and his associate Safdar Hussain hiding in Pakistan – have been challenged as absconders.
The investigation revealed that Hizbul Mujahideen, with the blessings of Pakistani agencies, gave the cover of studentship to Asif but misused his stay in Pakistan to meet his father, a senior figure of the terrorist outfit and also undergo training in sabotage and subversion.
“Registered at Police Station JIC Jammu, the investigation revealed how Pakistani agencies have been brazenly and egregiously misusing not only the travel between the two countries on the basis of valid travel documents but also the Indian students going to Pakistan for higher studies,” the release said.
The forensics of phone devices of Asif showed that he had video graphed army installations along the Baramulla Srinagar road. He had also photographed the access road to the airport and security features adjacent to it.
While the visa on Asif’s passport showed that he was a visitor, immigration records indicated he was a student.
Interrogation of Asif in the context of digital evidence revealed that Pakistan had arranged his admission to International Islamic University in Islamabad in a mass communication programme as cover and simultaneously facilitated his internship in the media cell of HM run by his father.
Investigation revealed that Asif had completely concealed that his father was in Pakistan and a senior figure of Hizbul Mujahideen and close to Syed Sallauddin, leader of the terror outfit. He had falsely mentioned that he was visiting Pakistan to meet a relative.
The release said the objective of Asif’s admission, as a student in a mass media course in Pakistan, is suspected, and he was to return to India as a respected journalist and clandestinely get embedded in the system and receive instructions from across in planning, coordinating and executing not only propaganda operations but separatist and even violent terrorist actions.
But for the videos on his cell phone, the latter part of the adversary agenda would not have surfaced.
The accused Asif Shabir Naik stayed in Pakistan for almost three years along with Shabir Hussian Naik and Safdar Hussain in the Hizbul Mujahideen camps. The major part of the investigation pertains to the territory of Pakistan.
Even when it is comprehended that Pakistan authorities would not cooperate in assisting this legally mandated investigation, it was thought prudent and legally warranted to use the tool of Letter Rogatory and request the Pakistani court of law through the laid down channel seeking information of the activities of the accused Asif Shabir Naik while in Pakistan.
Similar Letter Rogatory-related requests have been initiated concerning Shabir Hussain Naik and Safdar Hussain hiding in Pakistan. (ANI)
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