NIA arrests jail superintendent for aiding militants

The National Investigating Agency (NIA) has arrested a deputy jail superintendent and a militant for allegedly hatching conspiracy inside Central Prison, Srinagar to recruit youth into the militancy.

The accused have been identified as Ishaq Palla of Shopian district and Feroz Ahmad Lone of Budgam. Lone is at present posted as deputy jail superintendent, Amphalla prison in Jammu.

They have been arrested in a case RC-07/2018/NIA/DLI under section 120B of RPC and 13, 18 and 18B of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The arrests came after the central probe agency carried out simultaneous raids on Tuesday. An official release issued by the NIA described Lone and Palla as main conspirators in a case in which the youth were motivated to join militancy and ex-filtrate to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) for arms training.

The NIA release said the conspiracy meeting at Srinagar central jail was held on October 25, 2017. Investigations conducted by the NIA revealed that Suhail Ahmad Bhat and Danish Ghulam Lone had been motivated by Palla. At the time of incident, Palla was lodged in Central prison Srinagar in a different case and “he was instrumental in hatching the conspiracy from Jail to motivate youths to join militancy.”

“Accused persons were in contact with each other through blackberry messenger during whole of October before they were apprehended by the police on October 30, 2017 and their attempt to ex-filtrate to PoK for arms training was effectively thwarted,” the statement added.

In view of sensitivity of the case and larger angle of conspiracy, the case had been handed over to the NIA. The accused Palla has been remanded to 10 days’ NIA custody by the Special NIA court, Jammu, where he was produced on Tuesday. The other accused Lone will be produced before the Court on Wednesday for seeking his custody.

Sources said later both of them will be subjected to sustained questioning to unearth the large conspiracy including the angel that the accused might have motivated some more youth to join militancy. “Cross-examination of the case could lead to some more clues and in view of this, more arrests in the case are not ruled out,” they added.