Cop, teacher among 3 govt staffers sacked over terror links
Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha on Tuesday dismissed three government employees for their alleged involvement with proscribed terror outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, officials said.
A police constable, a school teacher and a junior assistant in a government medical college were terminated under Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution, which allows dismissal without an inquiry 'in the interest of national security'. All three are currently lodged in jail, they said.
Over 75 government employees with terror links have been dismissed so far by the LG administration.
Officials said the action is part of the administration's continued crackdown on terror infrastructure, including overground workers (OGWs) and sympathisers embedded within government institutions.
The dismissed employees were identified as Malik Ishfaq Naseer, a police constable, Ajaz Ahmed, a teacher in the school education department and Waseem Ahmad Khan, a junior assistant in Government Medical College, Srinagar.
The sacked employees were 'active terror collaborators,' involved in logistics, arms smuggling, and aiding terror operations against security forces and civilians, a senior security official said.
Constable Malik Ishfaq Naseer, recruited in 2007, came under suspicion during an investigation into arms smuggling in 2021. His brother Malik Asif was a Pakistan-trained LeT militant and was killed in 2018, but he allegedly continued to support the outfit while serving in the police, he said.
'He used his position to identify safe drop locations for arms, explosives, and narcotics, and shared GPS coordinates with Pakistani handlers,' the official said.
Malik also allegedly distributed these consignments to active terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir. His LeT link was exposed in September, 2021 when J&K police was investigating a case related to smuggling of arms and explosives in Jammu region. 'He was not only identifying the safe location, sharing the coordinates with LeT handlers in Pakistan but he was also collecting and distributing arms and ammunition to terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir region enabling them to carry out terrorist attacks on security forces and civilians,' a senior security official.
He said that instead of helping the police department in fighting the terror which he was mandated for, he chose to be a mole and a collaborator and betrayed his oath and uniform.
'His betrayal of the oath and uniform has caused grave damage to the department, society and the nation,' the official added.
Ajaz Ahmed, who joined the Education Department in 2011, was found smuggling arms, ammunition, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen propaganda material. He was arrested during a routine police check in November 2023.
According to the probe, the arms were meant for militants operating in Kashmir, sent by his handler Abid Ramzan Sheikh, a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen operative based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Ajaz Ahmed was allegedly involved in such activities for several years and he became a trusted terror associate of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in the Poonch region. He was actively helping the terror outfit in smuggling arms, ammunition and narcotics, the officer said.
The terror link with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen was exposed in November 2023 when police arrested Ajaz Ahmed and his friend during a routine check. Both were carrying arms, ammunition and posters of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in his car.
Waseem Ahmad Khan, a junior assistant at Government Medical College, Srinagar, appointed in 2007, was allegedly found to be part of a terror plot that led to the assassination of journalist Shujaat Bukhari and his security personnel in June 2018, the officer said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Deccan Herald
23 minutes ago
- Deccan Herald
Supreme Court deplores parties offering to deposit bail amount, later calling it 'onerous'
A bench of Justices K V Viswanathan and N Kotiswar Singh said while the apex court was conscious of the rights of an individual under Article 21 of the Constitution, it had to be equally conscious of the "sanctity of the judicial process".
NDTV
23 minutes ago
- NDTV
NIA Gets 5-Day Custody Of 2 Men Arrested For Sheltering Pahalgam Attackers
Jammu: A local court on Monday granted the National Investigation Agency (NIA) five-day remand of two accused who were arrested for harbouring the Pakistani terrorists behind the deadly Pahalgam terror attack in April, officials said here. The two men - Parvaiz Ahmad Jothar from Batkote, Pahalgam, and Bashir Ahmad Jothar of Hill Park, Pahalgam - were arrested by NIA on Sunday in the first major breakthrough in the investigations into the attack that left 26 persons, mostly tourists, dead and 16 others injured on April 22. According to the NIA, the arrested accused have disclosed the identities of the three armed terrorists involved in the attack, and have also confirmed that they were Pakistani nationals affiliated to the banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The two accused were produced in the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge, Jammu, Ritesh Kumar Dubey, and were sent to NIA custody for five days till June 27, a court official said. Parvaiz and Bashir had knowingly harboured the three armed terrorists at a seasonal dhok (hut) at Hill Park before the attack, according to NIA investigations. The two men had provided food, shelter and logistical support to the terrorists, who had, on the fateful afternoon, selectively killed the tourists on the basis of their religious identity, making it one of the most gruesome terrorist attacks ever, the agency said.
NDTV
29 minutes ago
- NDTV
Congressmen "So Disgusted With Sanjay Gandhi That...": Indira Gandhi Aide In Book
New Delhi: As principal secretary to Indira Gandhi in the run up to the Emergency and during her authoritarian regime of 21 months, PN Dhar had a rare insight into the goings-on of the period, and one central character who gets the most unflattering portrayal in his otherwise sober account of the era is the former prime minister's younger son Sanjay Gandhi. In his book 'Indira Gandhi, the Emergency, and Indian Democracy', Mr Dhar says the PMH (Prime Minister's Home) became a hive of "extra-constitutional" activities as leaders junior in the Congress hierarchy but having the ears of an increasingly distrustful prime minister and another set of functionaries loyal to her son undermined the PMS (Prime Minister's Secretariat). Critical of the power centralised in the PMS, Morarji Desai reduced its strength and rechristened it as Prime Minister's Office, a moniker which has continued, after replacing Indira Gandhi. Sanjay Gandhi and his loyalists like Haryana leader Bansi Lal gained ascendency in the Congress during the era. Even the prime minister was left alarmed by their move to have state assemblies pass resolutions in support of forming a constituent assembly for sweeping changes in the Constitution. Aware of her obsessive love for Sanjay Gandhi, Mr Dhar said in the book published in 2000 that he would normally have attributed all this to temporary annoyance. "But it was more than a passing mood this time. I knew how carefully she had kept Sanjay out of all discussions on constitutional reforms. I also knew how much she had resented the passage of the constituent assembly resolutions by the three assemblies without her knowledge, but with Sanjay's approval. Was Sanjay proving too wild even for her?" he wondered. He said the main purpose of the constituent assembly appeared to be continuing the Emergency regime and postponing elections. Bansi Lal told Mr Dhar that it would be to make "behan ji" (Indira Gandhi) president for life. When the Congress suffered a stunning loss in the March 1977 elections after the Emergency was lifted, Delhi turned into a "vast whispering gallery" echoing with stories of Indira Gandhi's alleged crimes and the plans of the Janata Party, which had won a majority, to destroy her and Sanjay Gandhi. She was more worried about Sanjay Gandhi and found herself isolated in her own family. "Rajiv had no sympathy for his brother. He came to see me, very concerned about his mother and full of anger against his brother. He said he had been a helpless observer of his brother's doings," Dhar writes. He said the Congress' defeat in the Gujarat assembly elections, which were held after the assembly was dissolved following student protests over a host of issues including corruption, and the Allahabad High Court's decision to disqualify Indira Gandhi from the Lok Sabha on the same day in June 1975 paved the way for the declaration of Emergency as the Jayaprakash Narayan-led opposition "cast off all restraint" to oust her. He said, "Indira Gandhi withdrew into her lonely self. At the moment of her supreme political crisis, she distrusted everybody except her younger son Sanjay." Sanjay Gandhi disliked his mother's colleagues and aides who had opposed his Maruti car project, or had otherwise not taken him seriously, Mr Dhar said. "He knew he would get into serious trouble if his mother were not around to protect him. For all her childhood insecurities, Indira Gandhi had compensated, one should say over-compensated, her sons, particularly Sanjay, with love and care. She was blind to his shortcomings. Her concern for Sanjay's future well-being was not an inconsiderable factor in her fateful decision," Mr Dhar said. Indira Gandhi, he added, accepted the self-serving opinion of her party colleagues that the JP-led opposition's attacks on them were really attacks on her. The Communist Party of India, her ally during the Emergency, had dubbed JP's agitation as a fascist movement supported by the US, a theory she embraced as she decided to suspend democracy, jail opposition leaders and censor the press to continue her rule. In the book written with a distance afforded to bureaucrats, no leading figure associated with the Emergency who comes in contact with Mr Dhar comes out an unblemished hero, not even the venerable JP, whose call for 'Sampoorna Kranti' (total revolution) and mass agitation for removing duly elected Congress governments in states and the Centre are questioned for their defiance of the rule of law and constitutional democracy. However, the leadership of JP, as Jayaprakash Narayan was often called, was instrumental in galvanising popular sentiments against Indira Gandhi as his role in the Quit India Movement had cast him in a heroic mould and his rejection of Jawaharlal Nehru's offer of a Cabinet post gave him high moral stature in a country where renunciation of power is held in high esteem, Mr Dhar noted. Soon after extending the tenure of the fifth Lok Sabha for another year till February 1978 on November 1976, Indira Gandhi was shown by Mr Dhar a report of "extreme coercion" inflicted on a group of school teachers for not fulfilling their sterilisation quota, one of the five-point programmes of Sanjay Gandhi beyond the 20-point programme of her government. "She fell silent after reading it. This was the first time she did not dismiss such allegations as false as had become her habit. After a long pause, she asked me in a tired voice how long I thought the Emergency should continue," he said. "Odd as it might seem, some Congressmen who believed that their party would lose in the elections also supported the idea of holding them. "They were so disgusted with Sanjay and his associates that they did not hesitate to tell his mother the opposite of what they believed would be the outcome of the elections," he added. Mr Dhar wrote that he invited the then chief election commissioner on January 1, 1977, for tea at home and took him into confidence for holding elections. The delighted CEC sent him a bottle of whiskey in the evening. On January 18, 1977, Gandhi announced that the Lok Sabha had been dissolved and fresh elections would be held two months later, leaving the opposition, people and the press stunned.
