Srinagar: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday filed a charge-sheet against six Kashmiri separatist leaders, including Shabir Ahmad Shah, for allegedly instigating large-scale mob violence against police personnel during the funeral procession of a slain terrorist in Srinagar nearly three decades ago.
Besides Shah, three other Hurriyat Conference deceased leaders — Syed Ali Shah Geelani (the hardline pro-Pakistan supporter), Abdul Gani Lone, the father of former Jammu and Kashmir minister Sajad Gani Lone and Mohammad Yaqoob Wakeel alias Yaqoob Vakil — were also named in the charge-sheet filed before the NIA Special Court in Jammu.
Kashmiri separatists Javid Ahmad Mir, former commander of the banned outfit Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), and Shakeel Ahmad Bakshi were also charged.
In a statement issued here, the charge-sheet clearly “established their roles in the criminal conspiracy and the common object of unlawful assembly, along with supporting evidence,” a statement issued by the probe agency said.
The NIA ascertained during the investigation that all six accused led an unlawful assembly and instigated large-scale violence against police personnel during the funeral procession of slain terrorist Hilal Ahmad Beigh in Srinagar on July 17, 1996.
“Armed terrorists blended with the procession, which was jointly led by the accused Hurriyat leaders, and fired indiscriminately at police personnel during the violence, in which several police officials were injured,” the NIA said, adding that government vehicles were also extensively damaged in heavy stone pelting.
As per NIA’s findings in the case, the accused Hurriyat leaders had actively incited the violence, raising anti-India, pro-Pakistan and secessionist slogans.
They delivered inflammatory speeches advocating armed struggle, the NIA allegedly further found.
Investigation by the anti-terror agency “clearly established that the mob violence was part of a larger, pre-planned criminal conspiracy of the Hurriyat leadership to use the funeral procession as a platform for propagating separatist ideology, mobilising public support against the Government of India, provoking public disorder, and inciting violence against law enforcement agencies, while demonstrating the strength of the Hurriyat in Jammu & Kashmir,” the statement said.
All six have been charged under relevant provisions of the Ranbir Penal Code, 1989, with criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder, rioting and assault on public servants along with Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, it said.
The section entails punishment of up to seven years for whoever takes part in or commits, or advocates, abets, advises or incites the commission of any unlawful activity.
The charges against Geelani, Lone and Wakeel stand abated as they passed away during the pendency of the proceedings, the NIA said.
Shah was arrested by the NIA in April this year in the 1996 case, a month after he was released after spending seven years in Tihar jail in a terror funding case. Mir and Bakshi had surrendered before a court in December last year and they are in judicial custody, officials said.
An FIR was initially registered in the case at the Shergarhi police station in Srinagar on the day of the violence. The NIA took over the case in April this year on the directives of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
