Of 40, 9 turn out to be HM militants from Kashmir

Ultras, 9 Pak wives being shifted to Srinagar
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 2: Nine militants along with their equal number of wives and 22 children were being shifted to Srinagar for sustained interrogation on transit remand from village Sonouli in Uttar Pradesh, where they were arrested on India, Nepal border following reports that they had attended terror camps in Pakistan and masterminded militant activities in Kashmir.
A Srinagar police team has already left for Sonouli to coordinate with Sahastra Suraksha Bal (SSB), which had arrested the Kashmiri militants and Uttar Pradesh Police, take their transit remand and shift them to Srinagar for questioning.
Police sources here identified nine captured militants as Sayeed Mujtaba Bukhari, Dawood Rather, Ashraf Thakur and Mustafa Hussain, all residents of Budgam, Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din, Bashir Ahmed and Abdul Rashid of Kupwara, Bashir Ahmed of Pahalgam and Shabbir Ahmed of Shopian.
Along with them were their nine Pakistani wives and 22 children, some of them were grown up while majority of others were minors.
Sources said an operational party of Srinagar police has reached Sonouli in Uttar Pradesh and was coordinating with SSB and UP police to take custody of the militants, their Pakistani wives and children and then shift them to Srinagar on transit remand for questioning.
A senior police officer said if the arrested persons were not found involved in terror activities and cooperated with police to give details about militant camps in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), they could be covered under Rehabilitation Policy of the State Government even though the route taken by them (Indo-Nepal border) was not part of the route identified under the Policy.
Sources said Srinagar police team was confident of taking custody of all 40 persons and shift them to the Valley for interrogation. The minor children and the women could be sent to recreational centres after the questioning.
According to sources, all nine Kashmiris arrested at Sonouli along Indo-Nepal border, figured in police record as Hizbul Mujahideen militants, who had crossed over to PoK in early nineties for arms training. After training, they couldn’t cross over to this side and were held up in PoK. Later, they married local girls in PoK and Pakistan and started working in small business concerns to run their livelihood. They had been putting up in rented houses.
Preliminary investigations by police revealed that the militants had managed to get passports and visa for Nepal posing themselves as Pakistani citizens with the help of some agents. They had paid money for securing passports and visas.
They flew to Kathmandu in Nepal from Karachi in Pakistan Airlines flight and then traveled up to Sonouli in Uttar Pradesh on Indo-Nepal border. As soon as they entered into the Indian territory, the SSB jawans deployed on the border took them into custody.
As identity of the intruders was confirmed as Kashmiris, the SSB sounded Uttar Pradesh and Kashmir Police. Sources said immediately thereafter, a Kashmir Police team left for Sonouli. They added that police have managed to get custody of the militants, their wives and children and would be reaching Srinagar shortly.
The SSB or Uttar Pradesh Police didn’t resist the custody of militants and their family members to police as they were not wanted to them in any case.
Reports with Jammu and Kashmir Police revealed that all nine militants were residents of different parts of Valley while their wives mostly hailed from Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK. They had married 10 to 12 years back and had 22 children with them.
Sources said though the Kashmiri youth belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen in police record, it was being ascertained as to whether they were involved in any militant activities here prior to crossing over to PoK for arms training. It was, however, confirmed that they had undergone training in camps of PoK run by Hizbul Mujahideen and were well versed with the militants held up across the LoC, the trainer and officials of Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), engaged in giving training to the militants.
“The militants could provide useful information about training camps and ultras held up in PoK and their handlers’’, sources said, adding that they would be quizzed on being brought to Srinagar. Though the cases of exfiltration and infiltration would be registered against the militants, police would decide whether to book them under militancy related laws only after their sustained interrogation.
On whether the militants could get benefits of Rehabilitation Police of the State Government and approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs, police said if the militants managed to get clean chit during questioning, their cases would be recommended to the Government under Rehabilitation Policy.
Under Rehabilitation Policy, the militants could come to this side only from four routes including Rawlakote-Poonch, Uri-Muzaffarabad in Jammu and Kashmir, Wagah border in Amritsar district of Punjab and Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in New Delhi.
Intelligence reports revealed that Pakistan agencies were scanning all visitors on these routes to ensure that no militant from that country could manage to reach India under Rehabilitation Policy as this would expose Pakistan that it had been sheltering the ultras.
In view of this, a number of inactive militants, who had married PoK or Pakistani women and were working there after leaving the training camps, had taken Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bangladesh border routes to enter into India and reach Jammu. The militants after obtaining passports and visas of Dhaka in Bangladesh or Kathmandu in Nepal flew there from Karachi and then crossed over to this side.
Sources said police and security agencies had reports that a number of militants from Jammu and Kashmir held up in Pakistan and PoK wanted to return to their homes but were not being able to do so due to strict surveillance maintained on them by the Pakistani agencies.
A number of militants were in touch with their families in Jammu and Kashmir and wanted to reach back home. Sources said nine militants captured in Uttar Pradesh were also in touch with their homes and their conversation had been trapped by some agencies in New Delhi, which had flashed a message to SSB in Uttar Pradesh to capture them on entering India.