Author: Express News Service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 3, 2005
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83217
Detainee gives details on Minister's killing,
several suicide attacks, how NC and Cong activists helped from hotel room
The arrest of a bank robber on Wednesday has
led the J&K Police to the network behind eight major militant strikes.
These include the recent assassination of
the junior Education Minister, the attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
public rally and several suicide attacks in Srinagar.
The robber who landed in the police net on
November 30 told them about a network of militant conduits who were members
of the youth wings of the National Conference and Congress, operating from
a high-security official accommodation for protected persons.
The two main militant conduits-one of them
a practising lawyer-had secured permission for unhindered movement which provided
them access to sensitive government and security buildings and protected colonies
for politicians, ministers and bureaucrats.
Police caught the robber by sheer chance.
A group of four robbers had come to the downtown branch of a local bank, held
the staff and people hostage at gun point and looted around Rs 12 lakh from
the cashier. But as they fled, one of them slipped and fell and was caught
by a group of angry people. The man-later identified as Mushtaq Ahmad-was
immediately handed over to the policemen who rushed in from a nearby checkpoint.
''Mushtaq was questioned and soon he spilled
the beans. What he told us shocked everybody. He gave us leads about a network
that included political activists under government protection, operating from
a high-security hotel room allotted to one of them,'' a senior police officer
says. ''They had been ferrying and helping fidayeens to carry out strikes
in the city and their activity had gone unnoticed.''
The officer said they helped to smuggle in
the fi dayeens to assassinate Education Minister Ghulam Nabi Lone. ''We immediately
sounded an alert and conducted raids everywhere. Within hours, we had captured
most of the men in the network. We later killed three Pakistani militants
as well,'' he said.
Mushtaq led the police to Shabir Bukhari and
Shakeel Ahmad Sofi, both from Kreeri in Baramullah. They were travelling in
their Gypsy, that was used frequently for ferrying fidayeens, when they were
intercepted. Police say Bukhari and Sofi were also involved in the bank robbery
which they had planned without consulting the Pakistani militants. ''This
robbery was not part of the militant itenary. Three of them were, in fact,
waiting to execute another major fidayeen attack on Doordarshan and Radio
Kashmir building,'' says the officer.
Police say that Sofi had secured the membership
of Youth National Conference and was alloted a room in the high-security Dolphin
hotel where the government has put up political activists who face a threat
to their lives. National Conference leader Ali Mohamamd Sagar, however, denied
that Sofi was a member of the organisation.
Bukhari, a lawyer, is a member of the Youth
Congress but J&K Congress president and minister Peerzada Mohamamd Syed
denied that he was a member.
Police had nabbed Sadaqat Ali of Rawalpindi,
Mohamamd Saleem of Lalukhet, Karachi and Abdul Rehman of Faisalabad but claimed
they were killed in a shootout.
Police sources say that Sofi and Bukhari brought
two fidayeens from Sumlar Bandipore to Srinagar along with a huge cache of
arms in the Gyspy and crossed several security force checkpoints using their
protected status. ''The attack was aimed at (CPM leader Mohammed Yusuf) Tarigami
inside his official residence and was planned for October 10. The two fidayeens
were staying with Sofi and Bukhari,'' the officer says.
They took the fidayeens on a recce on October
8. Police say the operation was postponed by a week on the instruction of
Bilal, a militant commander, who called Sofi on his mobile phone. ''Then again
on October 18, the duo smuggled the two fidayeens inside the high-security
colony from the main gate,'' he says.
One of them was killed at the gate of Tarigami's
residence while the other had sneaked into Education Minister Lone's residence
and killed him. The police officer says that the militant who escaped called
up Sofi, who along with Bukhari picked him up and took him to Bandipore.
Police say Sofi and Bukhari have been running
this network for one and half years.
According to them, the other attacks they
helped organise include:
* The attack to disrupt the public rally of
Prime minister Manmohan Singh on November, 17, 2004.
* The attack on former deputy chief minister
Mangat Ram Sharma when a grenade was hurled on his rally.
* An attack on minister Syed Bashir at Lalchowk
when his car was fired at.
* The attacks on Bombay Gujarat Hotel at Lalchowk,
CRPF camps at Firdous Cinema and Nigeen Club in downtown Srinagar.
