2004 J&K mosque attack: A file goes missing, trail cold in attack by ‘Hindu extremists’
The grenade attack on a Friday prayer gathering at the Ahle Hadees mosque in Peer Mitha on January 9, 2004, had left two J&K officials dead and 19 injured.
An investigation into the theft of a police file on a 2004 grenade attack on a mosque in Jammu has gone cold. In this case too, the NIA had blamed Hindu extremists, including two held in the Malegaon blasts case and currently in judicial custody.
The grenade attack on a Friday prayer gathering at the Ahle Hadees mosque in Peer Mitha on January 9, 2004, had left two J&K officials dead and 19 injured. The Jammu police had initially blamed a small militant outfit, Tehreek-ul Mujahideen, and arrested 108 people. In 2005, the case was closed as “untraced”.
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Seven years later, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had said Rajendra Chaudhary and Dhan Singh, arrested in connection with the 2007 Samjhauta Express attack and the 2008 Malegaon blasts, were behind the attack. In December 2012, an NIA team had questioned two youths from Kanachak in Jammu.
In the light of the NIA disclosures, a re-investigation was ordered, but it never took off because the J&K Police said that the original case file had been “stolen”.
Last month, special public prosecutor Rohini Salian had told The Indian Express that she was asked to “go soft” in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case by an NIA officer after the change of government at the Centre.
“The NIA asked for the evidence that we had collected from the spot immediately after the mosque grenade blasts,” a senior officer of the J&K Police said. He said he issued orders for a re-investigation, only to be told that the case file had been stolen from the police station. “A deputy superintendent of police was asked to investigate the theft,” he said.
No progress has been made since. “It’s in cold storage,” the officer said.
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Director General of J&K Police K Rajendra said he was “surprised” when he got to know that the file was lost. He declined comment on the current status of the case.
PDP leader and J&K Revenue Minister Javaid Mustafa Mir, who was minister of state for power in 2004, was present in the mosque at the time of the attack. He said he knew who had hurled the grenades. “I know it very well. But what can I do about it?’’
As per the NIA, in a “disclosure statement”, Rajendra Chaudhary had said that in 2001 he had met Sunil Joshi, then a pracharak in Mhow, at Depalpur in Indore district of Madhya Pradesh. “Sunil Joshi… asked me to do something for Hindus and the country. I readily agreed to lay down my life for the Hindu cause. He said Hindus are facing atrocities in Kashmir due to Muslim terrorism… we both came to Jammu by train. We visited Vaishno Devi temple and thereafter Sunilji took me to a room near Purkhu village, Jammu. It was a big ground with a room where two persons, namely Chanderkant Patil and Dhan Singh of Hatod, were already staying,” Chaudhary allegedly told the NIA.
“Dhan Singh told me he had come to the camp around two months ago. Sunilji left Jammu after dropping me there. We, three, stayed in that room at Purkhu camp for about three months… Patil showed us two hand grenades kept in his suitcase and asked us to explode them. Along with Dhan Singh and Patil, I went to the mosque at Peer Meetha (around 15 km from our place) by bus. They told me to wait at the local bus stop and went to the mosque. After hurling grenades (I heard the sound of explosion), they both came running to the bus stand. I later came to know that due to that explosion, two persons had been killed and a few injured. Along with Dhan Singh, I returned to Indore, leaving Patil in Jammu,” Chaudhary reportedly said.
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The NIA claimed that, in his statement, Dhan Singh said: “Along with Patil, I went to the masjid. After removing pins from the hand grenades, both of us threw hand grenades on the namazis… After that incident, I along with Rajendra came back to Indore and Patil stayed back.’’
According to the FIR lodged at the Peer Mitha police station, Abdul Rashid Khan, junior assistant in the law department, and Mohammad Shafi, junior assistant in the animal husbandry department — both from Natipora in Srinagar — were killed while 19 were injured when the two grenades were hurled.
The family of Abdul Rashid Khan couldn’t be traced but Asha Begum, mother of Mohammad Shafi, told The Indian Express: “We were told by police and the government that the attack was done by militants and was meant to kill a minister.”
She added, “It took me a long time to believe that my son was dead… I never took up the fight for him. I had no idea who to fight with, who to ask why they killed my son.”
Muzamil Jaleel is a Deputy Editor at The Indian Express and is widely recognized as one of India’s most authoritative voices on Jammu & Kashmir, national security, and internal affairs. With a career spanning over 30 years, he has provided definitive on-the-ground reportage from the heart of the Kashmir conflict, bearing witness to historic political transitions and constitutional shifts.
Expertise and Investigative Depth
Muzamil’s work is characterized by a rare combination of ground-level immersion and high-level constitutional analysis. His expertise includes:
Conflict & Geopolitics: Decades of reporting on the evolution of the Kashmir conflict, the Indo-Pak peace process, and the socio-political dynamics of the Himalayan region.
Constitutional Law: Deep-dive analysis of Article 370 and Article 35A, providing clarity on the legal and demographic implications of their abrogation in 2019.
Human Rights & Accountability: A relentless investigator of state and non-state actors, uncovering systemic abuses including fake encounters and the custodial death of political workers.
International War Reporting: Beyond South Asia, he provided on-the-spot coverage of the final, decisive phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009.
Landmark Exposés & Impact
Muzamil’s reporting has repeatedly forced institutional accountability and shaped national discourse:
The Kashmir Sex Scandal (2006): His investigative series exposed a high-profile exploitation nexus involving top politicians, bureaucrats, and police officers, leading to the sacking and arrest of several senior officials.
Fake Encounters: His reports blew the lid off cases where innocent civilians were passed off as "foreign terrorists" by security forces for gallantry awards.
SIMI Investigations: He conducted a massive deep-dive into the arrests of SIMI members, using public records to show how innocuous religious gatherings were often labeled as incriminating activities by investigative agencies.
The Amarnath Land Row: Provided critical context to the 2008 agitation that polarized the region and altered its political trajectory.
Over the years, Muzamil has also covered 2002 Gujarat riots, Bhuj earthquake, assembly elections in Bihar for Indian Express. He has also reported the peace process in Northern Ireland, war in Sri Lanka and national elections in Pakistan for the paper.
Awards and Fellowships
His "Journalism of Courage" has been honored with the industry's most prestigious accolades:
Four Ramnath Goenka Awards: Recognized for J&K Reportage (2007), On-the-Spot Reporting (2009), and Reporting on Politics and Government (2012, 2017).
Kurt Schork Award: From Columbia University for international journalism.
Sanskriti Award: For excellence in Indian journalism and literature.
IFJ Tolerance Prize: For his empathetic and nuanced reporting in South Asia.
International Fellowships: Served as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley and worked with The Guardian, The Observer, and The Times in London. He has also received Chevening fellowship and a fellowship at the Institute of Social Studies, Hague, Netherlands.
Professional Presence
Current Location: New Delhi (formerly Bureau Chief, Srinagar).
Education: Master’s in Journalism from Kashmir University.
Social Media: Follow him for field insights and rigorous analysis on X (Twitter) @MuzamilJALEEL. ... Read More
