Four Srinagar houses sealed in crackdown on terrorist hideouts

The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of Jammu and Kashmir Police on Monday  sealed four residential houses in Srinagar for providing shelter to terrorists of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and its front organisation, The Resistance Front (TRF).

Officials said that the SIU under proper supervision of an executive magistrate attached and sealed the residential houses of Shaheena and Asif Nath, wife and son of Mohammad Yunus Nath, Altaf Ahmad Dar son of Mohammad Abdullah Dar and Mudasir Ahmad Mir son of Mohammad Sultan Mir son of Mohammad Sultan Mir, residents of Barthana, Qamarwari (Srinagar) and Abdul Rehman Bhat son of Abdul Salam Bhat of Eidgah Sangam (Srinagar) “for providing shelter to terrorists”.

The four houses, like a number of such previous attachments in 2021 and 2022, have been attached and sealed under section 25 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.  The enforcement team on the spot directed the concerned that there should be no alteration or otherwise to the attached properties without the prior permission of the designated authority.

Officials said that Police Station Parmpira, Srinagar, had on 28 May, 2022, received reliable information and registered case FIR No: 127/2022 under sections 153A 153-B and 505 Indian Penal Code. In its continued investigation, a module was found involved in hiding and providing logistical support to active terrorists of the TRF/LeT outfit. It resulted in the arrest of the involved persons.

During the investigation, it was found that the terrorists had been provided shelter and other logistics in the same houses at Barthana and Sangam, on the outskirts of Srinagar. Proceedings under sections 24 and 25 of UAPA were initiated accordingly and approval for attachment received from the designated authority.

The charge-sheet of the case was presented before a court under sections 7/25 Indian Arms Act and sections 13 16 18 19 20 38 and 39 UAPA on 2 December, 2022, against 13 accused persons including active terrorists of TRF and LeT for the judicial determination. The investigation of the said case is still going on.

The SIU has requested the citizens not to provide shelter or logistics to terrorists failing which law would take its course.

While over 50 properties in Kashmir have been attached and sealed for allegedly providing shelter to terrorists, residential houses of at least two wanted terrorists have been demolished with bulldozers in 2021 and 2022.

In addition, a large number of the properties belonging to the outlawed Jamaat-e-Islami and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, including the residential houses of the separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who died in September 2021, and the Dukhtaran-e-Millat founder-chairperson Asiya Andrabi, who has been detained at Delhi’s Tihar Jail since April 2018, have also been sealed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police and other agencies.

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