NIA seeks report on ex-MLA over his ‘soft corner for separatists’

On September 28 last year, a Special Police Officer (SPO) Adil Bashir Sheikh, posted with the then PDP legislator Mir, escaped with seven rifles and a pistol from the legislator’s official residence at Jawahar Nagar in Srinagar. Mir was not in Kashmir when the incident happened.

SPO Sheikh, who hailed from legislator Mir’s home town Wachi in south Kashmir’s Shopian, later joined militant ranks and posed in a picture with militants holding AK-47 rifles.

Soon after the incident, J-K Police registered a case under FIR NO 57/2018 and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the weapons’ theft. The case was later handed over to the NIA.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Mir, who represented Wachi constituency of Shopian in the previous state assembly, said he is not afraid of any probe. “I am ready for any investigation,” he said. “If they have to probe this case or any other case, I am ready,” added Mir.

In an interview to The Indian Express in November, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said that Mir was being coerced to leave the party.  “A senior BJP leader would travel to Srinagar every fortnight and summon our MLAs and MLCs. They told our Wachi MLA Aijaz Ahmad Mir that he has only two options: either leave PDP, join them and be part of the government or go to jail for two years. This happened soon after one of his police guards stole rifles and joined militants. What was his fault? He was cooperating with the J&K’s Police investigation. Same happened to Yasir Reshi, our MLC. They used the NIA to intimidate him and his family,” she had said.