Delhi cops8217; 8216;fidayeen8217; Liyaqat Shah is ex-militant travelling with family

Shah was not alone,he was with eight others,including an 18-month-old boy when he crossed over. The group included Shah,his wife Akhtara,his 18-year-old step-daughter Jabeena and the six-member family of another Kashmiri,Mohammad Ashraf,when they approached Sashastra Seema Bal SSB officers at the Sanauli check post,sources said. The whereabouts of the others are not known.

Sources said the group was coming back as part of a rehabilitation policy of the Jammu and Kashmir government for surrendered militants. Incidentally,this has been a preferred route for people living in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir PoK to cross over to India to avail amnesty under the Jamp;K governments rehabilitation policy. Under the rehabilitation plan,approximately 150 militants returned to the Valley in 2011,and around 115 in 2012. Most of them take the Nepal route.

The SSB officials informed their Delhi headquarters and Delhi Police was roped into the operation. A Special Cell inspector went to Uttar Pradesh where Shah was arrested. The whereabouts of the rest of the people accompanying him are not known, said a source.

When contacted,SSB chief Arun Chowdhury said,It was a Delhi Police operation and we do not know anything about it. S N Srivastava,Special Commissioner Special cell said his team had kept a watch on Shah from Kathmandu. After he reached the Sanauli checkpost,we kept tracking him till Gorakhpur. Our source identified him in the city and we arrested him on March 20 itself,the day he entered Sanauli, he said.

On being asked whether there were children and women accompanying him,he said,I do not deny that there may be other people with him but we do not know who they were. We have not arrested anybody else yet. He added that Shah had a Pakisani passport on him and he had come by air to Kathmandu.

According to the Jamp;K Police,Shah had been associated with HM and Al Barq militant organisations in 1996 and the police has no record of his militant activity after he crossed over to PoK. He came back once,and went again in 1997.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police had registered an FIR number 22 at police station Lalpura against Shah and others in 2011 under various sections including criminal conspiracy and waging war against the country. We have got a copy of the FIR. Srivastava said.

When contacted,Inspector General of Police,Kashmir range,Abdul Gani Mir said that the FIR filed by the Jamp;K police in 2011 in Lalpora police station in Lolab is a general FIR against all those people who we know were across the border or are missing. This FIR is not based on an incident. It isnt against anybody in particular but a general FIR, he said.

The Kupwara police said that they filed a general FIR so that thepeople who went across the border or are missing can be accounted for. There were 30 people named in this particular FIR 22/2011,they said.

According to the family,Shah had crossed the Line of Control in 1997. For many years,I had no contact with my husband. After many years,a letter came from Pok in which my husband was seeking my consent for his second marriage with a Kashmiri widow who was also living in PoK. I granted him permission for the second marriage, Alis first wife Amina Begum said.

Begum said after the second marriage he used to call her from PoK. When government announced that militants who had crossed the LoC and are living in Pok will be allowed to return,we urged him to return along with his second wife and step-daughter, she said.

Amina who lives in a joint family along with Shahs brothers and her two sons at Dardpora village in Lolab Kupwara said that everyone in the family knew Ali was coming back. All of us in the family were happy about his return and were waiting. On Thursday afternoon,somebody called from Delhi on my mobile number and informed us about his arrest, she said.

The police has fabricated a case against him even though we have completed all the formalities and even filled the forms required for return at Deputy Commissioners office in Kupwara, she said.

Alis son Syed Shabir said that his father was running a grocery shop at Muzuffarabad to earn his livelihood and left militancy long back. He was happy about his return to the Valley, he said. Shabir said that his father had called the family on March 10 and had informed them about his return through Nepal. Many people who had crossed to PoK came back to the Valley via Nepal. And my father took the same route and had completed all the formalities.