Four arrested for helping Lashkar terrorist flee from Srinagar hospital

Police arrested four people for allegedly helping a Pakistani Lashkar-eTaiba (LeT) terrorist escape from a Srinagar hospital after a dramatic raid left two security personnel dead on Tuesday.

Police identified the four arrested as Shakeel Bhat, Tika Khan, Rahil Kachroo and Mohammad Shafi, adding that they were directly involved in the escape of the LeT militant, 22-year-old Jhatt alias Abu Hanzalla. Bhat was the alleged mastermind of the raid at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital to free Jhatt, who was brought for treatment in custody, police added.

Six other people, said to be militant sympathisers, have been detained for questioning, they said.

“SIT has started the probe and due to scientific evidence we ascertained who were involved. They were identified, raids were conducted. We apprehended two terrorists and two OGWs. After their arrest we are left with Naveed and another terrorist who are still at large,” said Muneer Khan, state’s additional director-general of police.

Sources said the arrested men belong to south Kashmir’s Pulwama area and were apprehended by the state police’s special operation group during separate raids on Wednesday night.

Jhatt is at present believed to be in the Pulwama area of south Kashmir, police said.

A fifth man, identified as Hilal of Pulwama, who helped in the escape is absconding and belie– ved to be with Jhatt. Kashmir’s home-grown militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen has also claimed responsibility for the attack.

The officials said that the police were able to zero in on the four accused with the help of CCTV camera footage and conversations on social media. They have also seized a motorcycle allegedly used by the militants to flee from the area.

Jhatt, 20, received commando training at the Lashkar’s headquarters in Muridke before sneaking into India in 2012.

He was arrested in 2014 and managed to get a stay order on his transfer from Srinagar’s central jail to another jail outside the valley in 2016 and again in 2017.

SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI:

The father of army major Aditya Kumar on Thursday moved the Supreme Court, demanding that an FIR registered against his son by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in the death of three civilians be quashed.

His son was just doing his duty and was “wrongly and arbitrarily” named, lieutenant colonel Karamveer Singh said in his plea.