Srinagar: A special court in Budgam has issued a non-bailable warrant against Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) chief Mohammad Yousuf Shah, who is also known as Syed Salah-ud-din. The court observed that he is evading arrest in a terror-related case registered against him in 2012.
The warrant was issued by the Special Judge(NIA) of Budgam Yahaya Firdous who said that the case diary (CD) revealed sufficient material linking Salah-ud-din to the alleged offences. “The Investigating Officer (IO) has collected sufficient evidence which prima facie connects the accused Shah for the commission of crime under Sections 13, 18, 20, 39 of the Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act and Section 506 of the Ranbir Penal Code”, the court observed.
The judge said that the original case diary has been forwarded to the competent authority for sanction, after which the chargesheet will be produced before the court for trial in absentia. Accepting the submission of the Investigating Officer (IO), the court held that Salah-ud-din was deliberately avoiding arrest. “As such, the court is satisfied that the accused is evading arrest. A non-bailable warrant (NBW) is issued against the accused with the direction to the police of Jammu and Kashmir to arrest him”, the order said.
Salah-ud-din contested the 1987 Assembly elections in the Kashmir Valley before crossing over to Pakistan in 1990 following the outbreak of militancy. He had contested on the ticket of Muslim United Front (MUF) from Amira Kadal constituency in Srinagar city. However, he had lost to Ghulam Mohiuddin of the National Conference (NC).
He later rose to become the chief of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), once the largest militant outfit operating in Jammu and Kashmir and was also appointed chairman of the United Jihad Council (UJC), an umbrella organization of different terrorist groups. The HM was believed to be largely a terrorist group in which local Kashmiris were dominant. It was used to build a narrative that the uprising in Jammu and Kashmir in late 1989 and early 1990 was “indigenous”.
The UJC is basically a creation of Pakistani military intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Incidentally, this agency keeps a watch on the activities of most terrorist organizations working against India at its behest. In 2017, the United States (US) designated Salah-ud-din as a global terrorist. In 2020, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) also declared him a terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
It needs to be mentioned here that Syed Salah-ud-din carried tremendous clut with various political parties of the Kashmir Valley. His influence on the administrative set-up was such that three of his sons got government jobs. Among a section of journalists of the Kashmir Valley, Syed Salah-ud-din is known as “Pir Saheb”. It is believed that he sometimes met a few prominent Kashmir-based journalists in Turkey and some Arab nations.
Many of these journalists were involved in Track II talks that continued behind the curtains for almost two decades or more. This Track II diplomacy was jettisoned by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government after he came to power over a decade ago. Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha terminated the services of Salah-ud-din’s three sons — Shahid Yousuf, Shakeel Yousuf and Mueed Yousuf — from government employment under Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution. This article allows dismissal of government employees without a formal inquiry on grounds of national security. Two of Syed Salah-ud-din’s sons, Shahid and Shakeel, have also been arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with a terror-funding case.
