J&K police's counter intelligence Kashmir wing raids central jail in Srinagar

The CIK sleuths cordoned off the Central Jail in the Rainawari area of the city before daybreak and started searching the barracks, they said.

Srinagar: The Counter Intelligence Kashmir wing of Police and State Investigation Agency (SIA) on Wednesday carried out searches at the Central Jail Srinagar as part of an investigation into a conspiracy between terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir and their handlers across the border.

"The searches at the Central Jail, Srinagar were conducted in pursuance to search warrants issued by the Honourable Court of Special Judge, designated under the NIA Act, Srinagar in a case registered in 2023," officials said here.

During investigation of the instant case, the officials said it emerged that mobile phones and devices were allegedly being used in the jail premises by undertrial terrorists and terror sympathisers of various proscribed terrorist organisations for communicating with active terrorists and passing on directions received from the handlers across the border.

"The suspects were in continuous touch with the handlers of terrorist organisations across the border, thereby receiving directions and passing on to the active terrorists active in Kashmir valley," they said.

The officials said the searches were conducted in different blocks and barracks of the Central Jail, wherein incriminating material in the form of SIM cards, mobile phones and other digital devices having bearing on the investigation of the case have been recovered and seized in the case.

The case pertains to a larger conspiracy hatched by proscribed terrorist organisations operating within Jammu and Kashmir and across the LoC at the behest of Pakistani agencies, in connivance with their supporters and facilitators/sympathisers in the Kashmir valley.

They are continuously in process of creating 'new terror modules' wherein by misusing various social media applications, youths of Kashmir are lured by varied ways and means, including radicalisation and instigation with the intention to make the youth indulge in unlawful and terrorist activities, the officials said.

The investigating agency is also looking into the aspect of security breach at the jail premises as to how these digital communication devices reached inside there.

"Facilitators/collaborators in this act will also become the subject of investigation," they added.

The officials said the operation is aimed at uncovering crucial evidence, curb illicit activities, prevent the misuse of communication devices, such as mobile phones, within the security zones, including the jails and dismantling the terror ecosystem in the Union Territory.