A growing unease over the arrest of Liyaqat Shah

New Delhi: Whether a Kashmiri arrested last week after he entered Uttar Pradesh from Nepal is a terrorist, as claimed by the Delhi Police, will now be determined by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). If the probe order comes today, the agency may go to court to seek his custody.

The growing unease over the arrest of Sayed Liyaqat Shah has also prompted the Prime Minister's Office to seek more details from central security agencies in briefings on Sunday.   

The Delhi Police says Mr Shah was headed to Delhi to carry out a terror attack, and they caught him just in time. But the Jammu and Kashmir government says the 45-year-old is among hundreds of men who crossed into Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in the '90s and now want to return under an amnesty scheme cleared in 2010 to help rehabilitate militants.

The state government says Mr Shah's family had applied for his return to Kashmir last year, and his application was cleared after a thorough background check determined he had not participated in any terrorist activities.

At the border, it alleges, Mr Shah was wrongly arrested by the Delhi Police.

Advertisement

The chief of the Delhi Police, Neeraj Kumar, on Monday defended the arrest. "We had developed the intelligence on our own," he said, but failed to explain how or when the Delhi Police set up a listening post in Nepal.  State police forces do not have the mandate to gather intelligence outside India's borders.  The Delhi Police says it received information weeks ago that Mr Shah was on his way to India, assigned to execute a terror strike by a senior commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen.
 
Sources say documents made available to the Union Home Ministry include Mr Shah on a list of at least 50 militants who were expected to return to India last year. That list has been prepared every year since the amnesty scheme was introduced in 2010. 

Senior Home Ministry officials told NDTV that after applications are received from the families of the militants who want to come back to India, an extensive background check is carried out by various agencies including the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Jammu and Kashmir Police, the Military Intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau. 

Advertisement

The list of the militants whose return is cleared is then circulated among officials in charge of possible entry points including the Sanauli Integrated Check Post on the Indo-Nepal border, where Mr Shah and his family arrived. 

Sources in the Home Ministry claim the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), which guards the Indo-Nepal border had been kept in the loop about the arrival of Mr Shah and other Indian militants returning from Pakistan.

Advertisement

However, they allege, the SSB allowed the Delhi Police to arrest Mr Shah who was travelling with his wife and teen daughter. "On being informed about Liyaqat's detention, central intelligence agencies had in unambiguous terms informed the Delhi Police that he wasn't a wanted terrorist and was returning as per the surrender policy," a senior Home Ministry official said.

The Rehabilitation and Surrender Policy of the J&K Government is one of the key measures designed to gain the trust and confidence of the people. Many of those who crossed over to Pakistan were either misled or forced to join militancy. "And, although most of them trained with some militant group after crossing over, many were left disillusioned or never wanted to pick up the gun," a senior official said.

Advertisement

It is estimated that there are at least a few thousand such youth who are in Pakistan and are desperate to return and join the mainstream.

Officials now fear that Mr Shah's arrest will now be used by Pakistan's ISI and terror groups to their advantage. "It also raises a serious question mark over our intention to help people stuck in Pakistan return to normal life," the officer added.