LET men free Pak ultra after hospital shooting
A Lashkar operative and a national of Pakistan, Naveed Jat aka Abu Hanzullah, was freed by suspected Lashkar militants after an audacious shooting in Srinagar’s premier Hari Singh Hospital on Tuesday.
Naveed’s two police escorts were killed when the pheranclad Lashkar militants opened fire on them in the hospital's parking lot. He was being guarded by three constables of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and being escorted along with five others to the hospital for a routine medical check-up.
Still in handcuffs when the shooting happened, Naveed ran out of the hospital. He fled with the assailants on a motorcycle.
Naveed Jat is still on the run but that is the least of the State administration’s worry; all indications are that it was an inside job. Such a meticulous operation could not have been planned without the connivance of the hospital staff. It is suspected that the Lashkar militants had received a tipoff on Naveed’s arrival – this could have come from within the force or from a mole in the hospital. Naveed was lodged in Srinagar's Central Jail.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police, Central Kashmir, Ghulam Hasan Bhat, has accepted that it was a “wellplanned attack”. ‘‘Naveed did not fire, it was a planned attack and the firing was by suspected militants and not the detainees who were brought in for the check up,” Bhat revealed.
Incidentally, the two slain cops were both local Kashmiris -head constable Mushtaq Ahmad and Babar Ahmad.
Naveed was arrested in 2014 from a hideout in Kulgam, a district in south Kashmir. He was the Lashkar’s deputy chief then, and his capture was hyped as a huge success. As per reports, he was a close associate of Abu Qasim, a top Lashkar-e-Toiba commander who was killed in 2015 in an encounter in south Kashmir. Incidentally, after his arrest, he was subjected to an age determination test after he claimed that he was 17 years old.
An eyewitness told The Free Press Journal that the firing took place at around 11:30 am. “For a common man like me, it was an unusual sight to see a person who is handcuffed being accompanied by so many policemen. Even as I was wondering who he might be, suddenly, I heard the sound of gunshots,” said an eyewitness Mushtaq Ahmad. “I lost my mind. There was chaos all around and everyone started running. And within no time I got to know that the handcuffed guy had escaped. It all happened in less than five minutes,” he added.
According to Superintendent of Police, Srinagar, Imtiyaz Parray, there were two assailants who helped Naveed to escape from the hospital. The police have procured the CCTV footage and is trying to identify the duo.
Meanwhile, a wreath-laying ceremony was held for both the slain cops at District Police Lines Srinagar. Additional Director General of Police Munir Ahmad Khan led the police officers in laying the floral wreaths.