HIZBUL MILITANT ARRESTED ON NEPAL BORDER
LUCKNOW: Suspected Hizbul Mujahideen militant Nasir Ahmad Wani (34) was arrested from the porous India-Nepal’s Sonauli border, in UP’s Maharajganj district, on Saturday. He was assigned the task to make fresh recruitments for his terror group. Shashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel, who guard the India-Nepal border spread across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar, nabbed Wani while he entered Indian territory posing as Kashmiri shawl vendor. DS Chauhan, deputy inspector general (DIG) of SSB, Lucknow frontier, said Wani has been handed over to UP ATS for further investigation. He said a Pakistan passport and identity card showing him as a resident of Pakistan’s Gujarat district were recovered from him.
LUCKNOW: Suspected Hizbul Mujahideen militant Nasir Ahmad Wani (34) was arrested from the porous India-Nepal’s Sonauli border, in UP’s Maharajganj district, on Saturday.
He was assigned the task to make fresh recruitments for his terror group.
Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel, who guard the India-Nepal border spread across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar, nabbed Wani while he entered Indian territory posing as a Kashmiri shawl vendor.
DS Chauhan, deputy inspector general (DIG) of SSB, Lucknow frontier, said Wani has been handed over to UP Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) for further investigation. He said a Pakistan passport and identity card showing him as a resident of Pakistan’s Gujarat district were recovered from him.
A senior ATS official said Wani revealed that he is native of Ramban district in Kashmir and was recruited into Hizbul at the age of 19 in 2002. He said the suspected militant entered Pakistan territory after getting involved into at least six attacks on security forces. He said the suspect was living in Pakistan since then and was in direct touch with Hizbul chief Sayed Sallahudeen, who himself hails from Kashmir and his family still stays there.
The official said Wani was returning to Kashmir via Nepal after his chief allotted him the task to make fresh recruitments for the militant group.
Wani landed in Kathmandu from Faisalabad via Sharjah by flight on May 10. An air ticket from Sharjah to Kathmandu was recovered from him, the official said. “He was also assigned the task to eliminate a person, who was earlier associated with the militant group but turned an informer for Indian security and intelligence agencies,” he said. The ATS official said Wani was inducted into the militant group through his relative, who was the Hizbul commander. “The suspect was critically injured when he suffered two bullet wounds in retaliatory firing by the security forces in 2002 before crossing over to Pakistan border in September 2003. Wani participated in arms training there and continued to work for the terror group during his stay in Pakistan since then.
He even married a Pakistani girl Ashha Naeem in 2009 and has two sons,” the official said.
WANI IN JUDICIAL CUSTODY
Meanwhile, Wani was sent into judicial custody after he was presented before a local court in Maharajganj on Sunday.
He would soon be taken in police custody remand for ques- tioning. Prior to crossing over to Pakistan, Wani was allegedly involved into multiple mine attacks during elections in Kashmir valley in 2002 that resulted killing of two army personnel and two local residents. He is also alleged to be part of the militant team that attacked security forces camps in Ramban in 2003.
He suffered bullet injuries in retaliatory firing by security forces on Shabang Bas GT Road (main highway) in Banihal in July 2002. He was also involved in arranging a hideout for 16 militants in Kulgam, where large quantity of arms and ammunitions were stored. Between November 2003 and January 2004, Ahmed received arms training at a place called Atak in Pakistan from the group’s members as well as personnel of the ISI and Pakistan army with the aim of fighting with Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.