Srinagar: Continuing with its tough campaign against former militants, alleged overground workers (OWGs) linked to separatist militant outfits and others booked in cases under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other laws, the Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday raided 21 more homes across capital Srinagar. These include the family house of Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, the founder of Al-Umar Mujahideen who was along with Masood Azhar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh released at Kandahar (Afghanistan) to secure safe return of 154 passengers and crew of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in December 1999. In March 2023, the Union Home Ministry declared Zargar who lives in Pakistan an officially designated terrorist and the Al-Umar Mujahideen as a terrorist organisation. In a notification, the Home Ministry notification had said that Zargar aka ‘Latram’ is a threat to peace, not only to India but around the world, with his contacts and proximity to radical terrorist groups like the Al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and that he was involved in several terror acts including kidnapping and ruthless murder of his adversaries and those who opposed militancy in Kashmir in early 1990s.The police crackdown, intensified after the April 22 deadly terror attack at Pahalgam, involves widespread raids, detentions, and combing operations across multiple districts to what the authorities say dismantle terror networks and neutralize threats. A police spokesman here said that in its continuing persistent action against ‘terrorist associates’ of proscribed outfits and in the furtherance of investigation into cases registered under the UAPA and other laws, the Srinagar Police “intensified searches across multiple locations in the city with the aim to dismantle terror-supporting infrastructure in the district”. During the campaign Zargar’s family house at Ghani Mohalla in central Srinagar was raided and thoroughly searched by a police team in connection with a case registered at the City’s Khanyar police station in 2024 under section 109 (attempt to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and sections 13, 16, 19, 39 (pertaining to involvement in unlawful activities, committing a terrorist act, harbouring or concealing individuals who are known to be terrorists and supporting a terrorist organization, respectively) of the UAPA. Following the Home Ministry’s declaration, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had attached Zargar’s family house built on two marlas (544 sq. ft) of land under the UAPA. The officials had said that it was because of the Home Ministry’s declaring Zargar as a designated terrorist under a provision of the same act that enabled the NIA to attach his ancestral property. But his family moved the court with the plea that the house was built not by him, but his forefathers and it belongs to all inheritors and not just him.Others whose homes were raided and subsequently searched by the police on Thursday have been identified as Aadil Nazir Janda, Faizyab Showkat Dewani, Momin Ahmad Sheikh, Fayaz Ahmad Kullo, Showkat Ahmad Khandwav, Muhammad Bariq Magray, Muhammad Rafiq Shah, Yasir Hayat Ahanger, Sheikh Faisal Rashid, Moomin Javid Gojri, Suhaib Bin Shafi, Parvaiz Ahmad Shah, Imtiyaz Ahmad Khanday, Fayaz Ahmad Sheikh, Wahid Abbas, Shahid Ahmad Lone, Imtiyaz Ahmad Chikla, Gulzar Ahmad Malla, Nazir Ahmad Kandhoo and Shabir Ahmad Gojri. The police said that the searches were conducted in accordance with proper legal procedures in the presence of executive magistrates and independent witnesses under the supervision of its.
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