Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested the former chief of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Javed Mir, and Islamic Students League chief Shakeel Bakshi — in connection with a nearly three decade-old case of rioting.
Officials said the arrests came after both surrendered before a Srinagar court on separate days, with Bakshi presenting himself on Monday and Mir following on Tuesday. The arrest, officials said, is part of an ongoing effort to bring closure to long-pending cases from the peak of militancy in the 1990s.
The two were arrested in connection with a case registered in 1996 at Shergari police station of Srinagar which related to protests that had rocked the city against the killing of Hilal Beg, the founding commander of the student wing of JKLF.
The case was registered under Sections 341, 148, 336, 332 of the RPC, along with 7/27 Arms Act and Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act after violence erupted during the funeral procession on July 17, 1996, an official said.
Javed Mir, also known as Javed Nalka, was among the four JKLF commanders who picked up arms in 1989, forming what became known as the HAJY group. Two of the group’s founding members — Hameed Sheikh and Ashfaq Majeed — were killed in encounters in the early 1990s. Mir and Yasin Malik later renounced violence and shifted towards separatist politics.
The arrests come days after the CBI suffered a setback in the 1989 abduction case of Dr. Rubaiya Sayeed — daughter of the then union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed — when it detained a Srinagar resident Shafat Ahmad Shangloo, claiming he had been absconding.
However, a court in Jammu refused to grant the CBI his custody, ruling that Shangloo had already been released in the case earlier due to lack of evidence.
