Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 2: State Investigation Agency (SIA) will use the “tool of letter rogatory” and request a court in Pakistan for information about three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists, two of whom are hiding in that country, and coordinating secessionist activities in the Union Territory, officials said.
The probe agency on Monday filed a charge sheet in a NIA special court against Asif Shabir Naik, a resident of Kastigarh in Doda, his father Shabir Hussain Naik alias Khalid Shabir, currently operating from Pakistan and Safdar Hussain alias Ehsan of Marmat in Doda, who is also based in Pakistan, they said.
While Asif Naik is in judicial custody, his father and his associate Safdar Hussain are hiding in Pakistan and have been designated absconders, an SIA spokesman said.
The officials said that as Asif Naik’s stay in Pakistan was for almost three years, the major part of the investigation pertains to the territory of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
During his visits, Asif Naik had stayed along with Shabir Naik and Safdar Hussain in Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) camps, they said.
“Even when common place knowledge suggests that Pakistan authorities would not co-operate in assisting this legally mandated investigation, it was thought prudent and legally warranted to use the tool of letter rogatory and request the Pakistani court of law through the laid down channel seeking information about activities of Asif while in Pakistan”, the spokesman said.
Similar, letters of rogatory related request have been initiated pertaining to Shabir Naik, a HM media advisor, and Safdar Hussain, who are hiding in Pakistan, he said, adding that the endeavours are being made to get some more evidence.
According to the charge sheet, Asif Naik was intercepted at the Srinagar airport while he was trying to go back to Pakistan. There were intelligence inputs that he had been visiting Pakistan posing as a student studying there, the officials said.
He was actually visiting terrorist and separatist training facilities there, suggested the intelligence inputs, the spokesman said.
The investigation revealed brazen and egregious misuse of travel documents by Pakistani agencies, the charge sheet said.
In this case, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen with the “blessings” of Pakistani agencies gave the cover of studentship to Asif Naik. He used his stay in Pakistan to meet his father and also undergo training in sabotage and subversion, it said.
“Asif Naik’s interrogation in the context of the digital evidence revealed that Pakistan had arranged his admission at the International Islamic University in Islamabad in a mass communication programme as cover, and simultaneously facilitated his internship in the media cell of the HM run by his father”, the spokesman said.
The investigation revealed that Asif Naik had completely concealed that his father was in Pakistan, a senior figure in the HM and close to Syed Sallahuddin, he said.
He had falsely mentioned that he was visiting Pakistan to meet a relative, the charge sheet said.
It said it is suspected that the objective of Asif Naik’s admission, as a student in a mass media course in Pakistan, was that he would to return to India as a journalist, clandestinely get embedded in the system and receive instructions on planning, coordinating and executing not only propaganda operations but separatist and even violent terrorist actions.
But for the videos in his cell phone the latter part of the adversary agenda would not have surfaced, the spokesman added.
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