Police fail to find any evidence against Sofi

JALANDHAR: Two weeks after the arrest of Danish Rehman Sofi, the fifth Kashmiri student arrested for alleged links with terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ulhind (AGH), police have failed to gather sufficient evidence against him.

Sofi, 19, of Awantipura in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was arrested on October 18, a week after a terror module was busted with the arrest of three Kashmiri students linked to Ansar Ghazwat-ul-hind.

LINK WITH THOSE ARRESTED

Zahid Gulzar, Mohammed Idris Shah alias Nadeem and Yusuf Rafiq Bhatt were nabbed from the hostel of CT Institute of Engineering Management and Technology at Shahpur on the outskirts of Jalandhar on October 10.

Two weapons, including an assault rifle, and explosives were recovered from them.

Sofi is believed to be a close aide of the fourth Kashmiri student, Sohail Ahmed Bhat, who arrested on October 12.

He had allegedly assisted the three Kashmiri students in picking weapons’ consignment from Amritsar on October 7.

Sofi was interrogated by the police for ten days and was sent to judicial custody on Friday.

An ACP rank official, privy to the investigation, said, “After interrogation, sufficient evidence to produce challan in the court against Sofi could not be gathered. The police have, however, not given a clean chit to Sofi and are still working on few leads to establish his links.”

“Sofi knew that the four arrested students were motivated by the terror group and were involved in criminal activities,” he added.

Police sources said if the police fail to gather sufficient evidence against Sofi in coming days, they will move an application in the court to acquit him by giving him the benefit of the doubt. Police commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said he could not comment on the issue as the matter was under investigation.