NIA has attached the house of fugitive terrorist Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, chief of Al-Umar Mujahideen, in Srinagar’s downtown area as part of the ongoing crackdown against the militants. The property is located at Gani Mohalla, Nowhatta in Srinagar.
Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar was one of the terrorists to be released after the IC-814 hijack case and now lives and operates from Pakistan. Earlier Mushtaq was listed as a terrorist in the first schedule of UAPA by the union home ministry. An NIA team with the assistance of local police and CRPF attached the 540 sq feet house on Thursday morning. NIA informed that the house at Ganai Mohalla, Jamia Masjid, Nowhatta, Srinagar, has been attached under the relevant provisions of UAPA.
This is part of NIA’s plan to weaken the terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir, as weakening the terrorists financially will break the back of terrorism. In the last several months, authorities have seized a large number of residential and commercial properties owned by terrorists and terror groups. While most of these terror networks have now moved their setup to Pakistan and operate from there, they are earning income from these properties.
The family of Mushtaq has protested against the attachment order and said that Muhtaq has nothing to do with the property.
Security agencies have identified hundreds of such properties worth crores belonging to terrorists and terror groups, and are in the process of attaching them. In December last year, 20 properties of Jamaat-e-Islami worth ₹123 crore, including a house in Srinagar owned by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, were seized by the State Investigation Agency (SIA) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
Mushtaq was involved in the kidnapping of Rubiya Sayeed, the daughter of the then Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 1989. At that time, he was a member of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. He left the group in 1991 and formed his own organisation, Al-Umar Mujahideen. Mushtaq was arrested in 1992, but was released in 1999, along with Jaish chief Masood Azhar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, in exchange for the release of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814.
Mushtaq has been living and operating from Pakistan after he was released, and he revived his Al-Umar Mujahideen in Muzaffarbad. He has been the chief recruiter of Lashkar and JeM and has ties with Al Qaeda as well.
All three terrorists released after the hijacking have emerged as major terrorist leaders. Masood Azhar was the mastermind in the 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament of India and Omar Saeed was involved in the gruesome killing of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Daniel Pearl murderer Omar Sheikh operated the terror organisation called Harkat-Ul Ansar.
