Srinagar:
The controversy over the arrest of alleged terrorist Sayyed Liyaqat Shah today reverberated in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly with several leaders of the ruling National Conference (NC) raising the matter in the assembly. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who has sought a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the incident, is likely to make a statement in the assembly today.
"Chief Minister has taken up the matter...there is a difference of opinion between the family and the concerned agencies...our stand is that he has come according to the rehabilitation policy...he should be given a chance," said senior NC leader and minister Ali Mohammad Sagar.
The government, under fierce attack from the Opposition, has termed the arrest by the Delhi Police as a major blow to the amnesty scheme for militants. 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.
The Delhi Police, though, continues to defend the arrest. It says 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. The cops say they intercepted Liyaqat in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh on March 20 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 from there.