The Enemy Within

The connection with Bhat was cemented when Rafique took him on as his personal secretary after winning the assembly elections from Shalibug in 1996 on an NC ticket. Ironically, before he joined the Assembly, Rafique had escaped a militant attack at Koimoh, in which his personal security officer (PSO) was killed.

On May 2, 2005, say police sources, Rafique left Srinagar to attend the wedding of a senior J&K bureaucrat’s son in Chandigarh. Hizbul commander Mohamamd Amin Baba allegedly boarded Rafique’s official car—which was also carrying Bhat—at Sangum on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway and travelled to Amritsar; Rafique and Bhat then went on to Chandigarh for the wedding, which counted former CM and NC patron Farooq Abdullah among the guests.

The episode came to light when the police was investigating a mine-blast in Anantnag the same month. They picked up one Javaid Ahmad in this connection and quizzed him about Hizbul commander Baba, also a suspect in the case. ‘‘He told us Baba had recently crossed over to Pakistan via Amritsar. On further interrogation, Javaid revealed that Baba had gone to Amritsar with Gul Rafique in his official vehicle,’’ a police officer said.

The police went on to arrest Bhat (under the Public Safety Act), armed PSO Kewal Singh, driver Sham and finally claimed to have cracked the case. Rafique, however, claimed he had no knowledge of Baba’s identity and had merely given him a lift after Bhat introduced him as a friend who wanted a ride till Amritsar. That didn’t cut much ice with the police, who arrested Rafique in mid-May 2005.

CURRENT STATUS: Rafique is in custody, and continues to be a member of the NC. ‘‘He is under trial, and we cannot throw him out until the charges against him are proven,’’ says NC chief Omar Abdullah.

ABDUL AZIZ ZARGAR, 65
CREDENTIALS: J&K agriculture minister
CHARGE: Aiding and sheltering militants as they planned Akshardham attack

AMONG the seniormost Kashmiri politicians—he was part of the Quit Kashmir movement against the Dogra rule, a member of J&K’s Constituent Assembly and a signatory to the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir—Zargar’s impeccable reputation took a beating during the interrogation of a motor mechanic from Meerut in September 2003.

Apart from confessing to escorting two fidayeens from Anantnag to Ahmedabad for the September 24, 2002, attack on Akshardham, Chand Khan, the mechanic, told the police that he met militant commander Abdullah Mansoor (who died in an encounter before Khan was picked up), and footsoldiers Sani and Zubair at Zargar’s ancestral house in Manzgam village in Kulgam tehsil. This was also where he met Abdullah and Shakeel—whom he was to escort to Gujarat—and where he smuggled weapons into a car, according to his interrogation report.

Zargar resigned as minister on September 12, 2003, but stridently denied any involvement, claiming he had had no connection with Manzgam for years and was ignorant of any militant activity in his house.

But Khan told the police about much more than the planning of the Akshardham attack. According to the interrogation report, he described how militants backed Zargar by attacking Sakina Itoo—his rival NC candidate—during the 2002 Assembly polls. The Akshardham plans, in fact, coincided with the election campaign.

It later appeared that the police themselves tried to keep the minister’s name out of the interrogation report: Zargar’s name was mentioned as Zaheer, rather than Aziz; he was also described as an MLA, rather than a senior cabinet minister.

Soon after these allegations became public, Itoo told The Indian Express, ‘‘I’ve been crying myself hoarse about Zargar’s militant links… It’s rubbish that he never visits his Manzgam house: His sons and daughters all live there. Even his wife lived there till he became minister.’’

CURRENT STATUS: Zargar continues to be a minister in the Ghulam Nabi Azad cabinet: His resignation was not accepted by then CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (after a lifetime in the Congress, Zargar became one of the founding members of Sayeed’s People’s Democratic Party). After Chand Khan was shipped off to Gujarat in connection with the Akshardham investigations, Zargar’s alleged militant links quietly slipped out of public memory.

ABDUL WAHID DAR, 34
CREDENTIALS: PDP municipal councillor
CHARGE: Leading a Lashkar module responsible for several fidayeen attacks in Srinagar in association with a Congress leader and the husband of a Congress councillor

INVESTIGATIONS of militant networks in the Harwan-Zakura area in the outskirts of Srinagar threw up the name of Dar, the PDP councillor from Zakura, who had left the Harkat-ul-Ansar to join mainstream politics. Police sources say a seized mobile phone indicated Dar was familiar with the militants; thereafter, they laid a trap and confirmed Dar’s involvement in early January this year.

‘‘During interrogation, Dar told us he had planned a fidayeen attack on August 15 last year to target then Chief Minister Mufti Mohamamd Sayeed,’’ IGP Kashmir K Rajendra says. ‘‘In fact, he had even taken the fidayeens on an elaborate recce of Bakshi stadium (the site of the state celebrations) in an official car and it was sheer luck that they couldn’t enter the stadium on the actual day.’’

Sources say the official car the militants were using got stuck in a traffic jam and failed to make it to the stadium on time.

Rajendra says the councillor was involved in several other fidayeen attacks as well. ‘‘He escorted fidayeens to Ganderbal when Muftisahib was supposed to be visiting. Muftisahib’s schedule changed at the last minute, that’s how the attack was aborted,’’ he says.

Of Dar’s two associates, the husband of the Congress councillor is identified as Mohammad Maqbool. The police are reluctant to reveal the name of the Congress leader, who is absconding. ‘‘But we know these two men (of the PDP and the Congress) were leading two separate modules of fidayeens,’’ the IGP says.

Sources reveal that the police have also discovered a Delhi bank account operated by a Dar-associate Kashmiri Hindu, which was used to funnel funds to fidayeens. ‘‘The account had huge transactions and there were lakhs of rupees in it when it was exposed,’’ says a police officer. Rajendra says the account has now been frozen.

Perhaps more than the politician-terror link exposed in the Dar case, it is the ‘‘in-house’’ character of the case that is shocking. Dar’s brother worked in Sayeed’s residence; Dar himself was perceived to be a loyal member of the PDP. In fact, soon after his name came up in the police investigations, Dar reportedly rushed to Jammu and then to Delhi to seek the help of the PDP top brass.

‘‘He would meet people, go places as a political political activist; there was no reason to suspect him,’’ says a police officer. ‘‘Can you imagine, he pretended to be a loyal member of the party. And he was planning to assassinate the leader of his own party.’’

CURRENT STATUS: Dar is in custody.

NISAR AHMAD DAHL, 42
CREDENTIALS: Congress municipal councillor
CHARGE: Sheltering militants

THOUGH his cousin was known to be an active militant, the police had no clue that Dahl had any links with militancy till the police and security forces killed two militant commanders at his Shopian residence on January 17.

The class VIII dropout, known to be close to be a top Congress politician from south Kashmir and involved in ‘‘illicit trade’’, came under the police scanner after he began to be spotted moving around Shopian without any security after being elected municipal councillor last year. The police also noted his lack of interest in civic works and his abysmal attendance in municipal meetings.

They labelled him an OGW (overground worker), but his Congress connections kept him out of the police net.

Till Tuesday evening, when a joint ops team of the Special Operations Group of the police and the 44 Rashtriya Rifles raided Dahl’s residence on specific information. As the militants hiding in the house refused to surrender, a fierce gun battle ensued; eventually, the house was blasted. When the dust settled, two militant commanders—identified by the army as Bilal Ahmad Sheikh aka Saifullah and Shabir Ahmad Najar aka Abu Talha—lay dead.

According to defence spokesman Lt Col V K Batra, Saifullah was the district commander of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen while his accomplice Talha was a battalion commander. ‘‘Saifullah was a frequent visitor to the house (of the councillor),’’ he says. ‘‘He was in constant touch with the councillor’s family. We had information that his (councillor’s) house was used by the militants.’’

CURRENT STATUS: Dahl is currently absconding.

To Catch a Thief
A lucky arrest unravelled the new nexus

NOT old-fashioned investigation, not a tip-off from a tested informer. It was the chance arrest of a robber that helped the J&K police uncover the depths of the politician-militant nexus in the state.

The day was November 30, 2005; the place was Rajouri Kadal in Srinagar’s old city. Four robbers forced their way into a J&K Bank branch and looted Rs 12 lakh. On their way out, one of the gang slipped and fell. Bystanders pounced on him and handed him over to the police, who later identified the man as Mushtaq Ahmad, resident of a nearby locality.

In custody, Mushtaq spilled the beans. ‘‘There were some shocking revelations,’’ says a senior police officer. Sources say his tips led the police to Shabir Bukhari and Shakeel Ahmad Sofi, two ‘protected’ mainstream political activists hailing from Kreeri village in Baramullah.

Sofi, say the police, was a member of the Youth National Conference and had a room in the high-security Dolphin hotel for political activists who face a threat to their lives. Bukhari, a lawyer, was a member of the Youth Congress. Both parties, however, have denied their memberships.

According to the police, both Sofi and Bukhari acted as conduits, ferrying militants from their hideouts to high security zones.

‘‘They brought two fidayeens from Sumlar Bandipore to Srinagar along with a huge cache of arms in a Gypsy and crossed several security force checkpoints using their protected status. They planned to attack (CPM leader Mohammed Yusuf) Tarigami inside his official residence on October 10. The two fidayeens stayed with Sofi and Bukhari,’’ says a police officer.

Tarigami escaped the attack but junior education minister Dr Ghulam Nabi Lone fell to the bullets of militants. ‘‘One militant was killed in the attack but Sofi and Bukhari helped the other reach his hideout safely.’’

Police say Sofi and Bukhari, one-and-half years in the business, also facilitated other high profile attacks.

IGP Rajendra told The Sunday Express that this new trend of militant infiltration into mainstream political parties was definitely worrying. ‘‘We busted a network in 2004 and discovered people who were in league with top politicians,’’ he says. ‘‘We had thought that was a one-time thing. But recent developments are worrying.’’