How unbridled corruption, misuse of information technology, not verifying the antecedents before recruitment, managing to be off the radar of the intelligence agencies for being active supporters and sponsors of Pakistani sponsored militancy and not questioning about the source of raising un-proportionately huge assets can result in formation of a group to pursue an agenda of issuing intimidating calls, threats and coercions to select hit list of people, was recently exposed by arresting five persons in Srinagar in a most professional but difficult operation. That even otherwise considered “respectable” persons like Secretary Srinagar Municipal Corporation and an advocate too can run such a crime ring as the one under reference, must further strengthen the belief that anyone suspected to be involved in a crime of whatever nature could be taken on the face to be law abiding simply because being considered “respectable” in the society due to occupying a high position in Government Department or being from a respectable profession. The group of five people including the kingpin was found running a blog site with nefarious objectives to issue threatening , intimidations and the like to numerous journalists , Government officers , politicians and social activists to coerce them to toe to the dictates and the ”orders” of this group to ultimately make things “smooth” in every way for Pakistan sponsored militancy with ultimate aim of secession of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India. The syndicate was active right from Srinagar up to Poonch. At the outset, the efforts of the Police authorities to unearth the activities of this syndicate and arrest the main ”handlers” deserve accolades. Houses and properties at multiple locations at posh areas of Srinagar like in Raj Bagh and Sanat Nagar, in Pulwama Kashmir and in Poonch Jammu belonging to these five persons were searched and inventory of wide range used to operate their mechanisations were seized by the police. It is worth noting that the accused Kingpin – Secretary SMC was a former militant and how he managed to get a job in Srinagar Municipal Corporation and subsequently rose to the Secretary level position raises many questions as to how the system grossly erred if not totally failed, in not preventing him from securing a job and despite various allegations of corruption and accumulation of huge wealth beyond known sources of income, he was elevated to the position of the Secretary. Once “in”, he could easily camouflage his nefarious activities and continued to throw dust on the system of checks and balances so much so that he managed to receive “Real Hero Award 2021” that was presented by the Group of Parliamentary members headed by NDA’s Chirag Paswan. The crafty manoeuvrings of the Kingpin Secretary SMC can be seen in his succeeding making high profile contacts just to keep his shoddy activities masked and shrouded. With the arrest of these five high profile criminals, hopes of cracking the murders of Journalist Shujawat Bukhari, advocate Babar Qadiri, gold smith Satpal etc could be achieved as the seized items were being thoroughly screened and deciphered. Even a cursory investigations much before into crores of Rupees worth of properties amassed by the militant turned employee turned officer of Secretary level of SMC probably could have been of great avail to the police authorities in reaching earlier to the syndicate run by the Secretary SMC , along with his daughter advocate , son and prospective son -in- law. It is to be seen whether involvement of more persons was there in running the syndicate which can be known only after thorough investigation
Follow our WhatsApp channel