New Delhi:
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) will probe the arrest of alleged Hizbul Mujahideen militant Sayyed Liyaqat Shah. The Centre's move comes after the Jammu and Kashmir government protested against the controversial arrest with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah asking Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to assign the case to the NIA.
The police forces of Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi have vastly different versions of why Liyaqat entered India via the Nepal border last week.
The Delhi Police, which arrested him on March 20, said it had received a tip-off in February that Liyaqat was headed to Delhi to execute a terror strike on the instructions of the Hizbul Mujahideen.
It says it intercepted Liyaqat in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and that he then confessed that arms and ammunition were waiting for him in a guest house in Delhi. An AK-56 assault rifle, two magazines with 30 cartridges each and three hand grenades were later recovered by the police. A sketch of a man who allegedly left the arms at the guesthouse for Liyaqat was released by the police yesterday.
But Liyaqat's wife and the Jammu and Kashmir Police say that he was a militant whose return to his home state had been sanctioned by central and state government agencies as part of a surrender and rehabilitation policy offered to those who had crossed into Pakistan, did not participate in terror-related activities, and wanted to resettle in Kashmir.
But the Delhi Police claims that it has yet to receive any written communication from the Jammu and Kashmir police about Liyaqat's case. It also says that if Liyaqat had been allowed to return as part of the amnesty plan for militants, no information had been shared with Delhi Police officials, which had informed the Home Ministry about Liyaqat's alleged terror plan.