NIA files charge sheets against four Kashmiri youth

New Delhi, Apr 05: National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday filed a charge sheet in the Special NIA Court, Mohali, Punjab against four Kashmir youth who were arrested months ago.

“NIA has filed a charge sheet in case no RC-34/2018/NIA/DLI, which relates to recovery of arms and ammunition as well as explosives from the possession of three Kashmiri youth from their hostel room at CT Group of Colleges, Jalandhar,” a statement issued to KNS reads.

Initially, a case FIR No. 166/2018 dated 10-10-2018 was registered by Punjab Police at PS Sadar, Jalandhar. This case was subsequently taken up for investigation by NIA, it added.

Initially, three accused namely Zahid Gulzar s/o Gulzar Ahmad Rather R/o Awantipora, Yasir Rafiq Bhat S/o Mohd. Rafiq Bhat, R/o Noorpora, Awantipora and Mohd. Idiris Shah S/o Abdul Qayoom Shah R/o Bohu, Awantipora were arrested on 10-10-2018 from a hostel room of CT Group of Institutions, Shahpur, Jalandhar.

“One AK-56 Rifle along with 02 Magazines having 27 live rounds each, one Pistol (.30 bore) along with 02 magazines and 31 live rounds and one Kg explosive powder were recovered from the possession of the above mentioned accused at the time of their arrest,” the statement reads.

Two of them viz. Zahid Gulzar and Yasir Rafiq Bhat were studying at CT Institute, Jalandhar and the third namely Mohd. Idris Shah, was studying at St. Soldier Institute, Jalandhar.

During investigation, other accused Sohail Ahmad Bhat S/o Late Ghulam Mohd. Bhat, r/o Village Noorpora, PS Awantipora, Distt Pulwama, a student of Universal Group of Institutions, Lalru, Punjab, was also arrested in the case.

During investigation, it was found that the arrested accused were cadres of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH), a Kashmir based militant organisation with a Pan-Islamic ideology, the statement reads.

“Investigation revealed that the arms, ammunition and explosives were collected by the accused under the direction of Zakir Musa for furthering the designs of AGH to commit strikes on sensitive targets. Investigation revealed that in furtherance of this conspiracy, accused had collected two consignments of arms, ammunitions and explosives from Gurdaspur and Amritsar in the months of August and October 2018. The designs of the militants were, however, defeated due to timely arrest of the accused,” it added.

Charge-Sheet has been filed in the Special NIA Court, Mohali, Punjab against (i) Zahid Gulzar son of Gulzar Ahmed Rather, resident of Rajpura, PS Awantipora, District Pulwama, J&K, (ii) Yasir Rafiq Bhat son of Mohd. Rafiq Bhat, resident of Noorpora, PS Awantipora, District Pulwama, J&K, (iii) Mohammad Idriss Shah son of Abdul Qayoom Shah, resident of Bohu, PS Awantipora, District Pulwama, J&K and (iv) Sohail Ahmad Bhat son of Late Ghulam Mohd. Bhat, r/o Village Noorpora, PS Awantipora, Distt Pulwama u/s 120B, 121A, 122 of IPC; Sections 18, 18B, 20 of UA (P) Act; Section 25 of Arms Act and Sections 3, 4, 5 of Explosive Substances Act, 1908.

Further investigation continues in respect of the other accused persons including AGH chief Zakir Musa, the statement added. (KNS)