Ex-JKLF militant held, granted bail

JAVED MIR, A MILITANT BEFORE HE GAVE UP ARMS IN THE MID-1990, WAS NAMED AS AN ACCUSED ALONG WITH OTHERS, INCLUDING JKLF CHIEF YASIN MALIK

Former JKLF militant Javed Ahmed Mir alias ‘Javed Nalka’ was arrested and later released on bail in connection with the killing of four IAF personnel, including a Squadron Leader, in January 1990, officials said here on Friday.

He was arrested on Wednesday and produced before a CBI court, which released him on bail the same day, the officials said.

Mir, who used to work in the water works department in Kashmir prior to joining militancy in late 1980’s, got an alias of ‘Nalka’ (tap in Kashmiri language). Four Air Force personnel, including Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, were killed in a terror attack on January 25, 1990 at Rawalpora, Srinagar. Around 40 others, including a woman, had received serious injuries in the attack.

Mir was named as an accused along with others, which included JKLF chief Yasin Malik, who is at present in judicial custody. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had chargesheeted Malik, Mir and four others before an anti-terrorism court in Jammu in the same case. He was granted a stay on trial by a single bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in 1995.

In 2008, Malik approached a special court saying that the trial be shifted to Srinagar as he was facing security problems in view of the Amarnath row —an agitation which had divided people of J&K on religious lines over the issue of leasing out land to outsiders during the annual pilgrimage.

Malik was a militant before he gave up arms in the mid-1990s. The CBI filed objections and opposed the application, which was rejected in an order dated April 20, 2009. Finally, decks were cleared this April for the trial of Malik in Jammu after standing counsel for the CBI, Monika Kohli, argued before the Jammu and Kashmir HC that the agency had opposed transfer of cases to Srinagar, which was rejected.