Ex-JKLF chief arrested IAF personnel were killed when they were waiting for a bus
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Javed Ahmed Mir, a former chief commander of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in connection with a case pertaining to the killing of four Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel in Srinagar’s Rawalpora area nearly three decades ago.
Mir, 54, was picked up by the sleuths of the CBI from his residence in Srinagar’s Jamalatta locality on Wednesday and later taken to Jammu. Mir was later produced before a CBI court in Jammu, which released him on bail, the officials said.
On January 25, 1990, four IAF personnel including a squadron leader were gunned down by suspected militants at Rawalpora when they were waiting for bus to relocate to an Air Force base near Srinagar airdrome.
Around 40 others, including a woman, had received serious injuries in the attack.
In August and September 1990, the CBI had filed two chargesheets against Muhammad Yasin Malik, the incumbent JKLF chief, Mir and other accused before the designated Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (Tada) court at Jammu.
Malik who is currently lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar jail is being produced through video conferencing in a special Tada court in Jammu. He was arrested by the J&K police from his residence in Srinagar’s Maisuma area on February 22 and subsequently detained under the state’s stringent Public Safety Act.
The Centre had in March declared the JKLF as an unlawful association under Section 3 (1) of the Unlawful Prevention Act 1967, saying the outfit is actively engaged in inciting secessionism and illegal funnelling of funds for fomenting terrorism in J&K.
Mir is currently associated with a different faction of the JKLF, the organisation which seeks reunification of J&K to make it an independent, sovereign country.
In 1995, a single bench of the J&K High Court stayed the trial as there was no Tada court in Srinagar. In 2008, Malik approached a special court saying that the trial should be shifted to Srinagar as he was facing security problems in view of the Amarnath land row which had pitted Kashmir Valley against Jammu region.