Jammu, March 10: Kashmir’s topmost counterinsurgency official Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, who functioned as Srinagar’s Senior Superintendent of Police in the year 2010 street turmoil and arrested the most wanted Massarat Alam Bhat to deflate the balloon of a meticulously organised separatist agitation, claimed on Tuesday that the Muslim League leader’s release would in no way subscribe to peace and normality in the strife-ravaged State.
In an exclusive conversation, the retired Police official Bukhari described Massarat as a “stanch jihadist activist and die-hard supporter of Pakistan and LeT” who, in his opinion, would change others for secession but would never change to absorb himself in the Indian national mainstream. He said none other than Massarat sponsored and controlled the three-month-long mayhem in Srinagar and elsewhere and it was on account of his high profile that the Omar Abdullah government put a cash reward of Rs 10 Lakh on the underground activist’s head.
“It took us months of hardwork coupled with human and technical intelligence to get over selves on his track. Towards the end, we put his mother’s telephone on surveillance and traced him to a relative’s home in Hazratbal area. We caught him in a neat and clean operation. Chief Minister greeted me but asked on phone ‘Why didn’t you bump off this man? Why did you get him alive?’ Though there was only cash reward of Rs 10 Lakh on his head, which I received from the DGP, Omar Abdullah gave me extra of Rs 15 Lakh from his own pocket. He also granted out of turn promotion to seven personnel of my team”, Bukhari said.
Bukhari, who played a key role in restoring peace, though by controversial methods of arresting hundreds of youth and using strong arm tactics to quell the turbulence, under the leadership of IGP S.M. Sahai and DGP Kuldeep Khoda, revealed that Omar Abdullah’s government also paid him reward money of Rs 1.50 crore four times by cheque in recognition of his “outstanding work” and “restoring peace with minimum possible use of force and maximum possible regard for the human rights”. “Had we not used the best of our brains, hundreds would have died. They would have reduced the whole city to rubble”.
‘For vote, Omar finally called me killer’
Bukhari nonetheless believed that the State’s mainstream politicians had caused much more damage to Kashmir than Pakistan, jihadist guerrillas and other separatists. “Militants and separatists like Massarat Alam are not masquerading as the Indian nationalists. It’s actually our mainstream political leaders who have destroyed Kashmir and future of our three generations under the politics of camouflage”, Bukhari asserted. He claimed that the death of over a hundred “demonstrators and arsonists” in the Police and CRPF action was the consequence of “the provocation and exploitation of raw minds by the politicians of different hues”.
“None other than Omar Abdullah, who gave me the prize posting of SSP Srinagar in the most challenging situation and maximum rewards and accolades, finally demonised me as the killer of 112 youths. He knew it better than anyone else that the real killers were the men instigating the violence and provoking the attacks. Ours was not action. It was reaction. It stopped only when we arrested Massarat. But the same Omar Abdullah called me a killer during his election speeches in Beerwah, Sonwar, Bandipore and other places. He left no stone unturned to demonise me. If I was the killer, what was he?” Bukhari added.
“Omar’s uncle Mustafa Kamal calling me a killer would have been understandable. But how can the Chief Minister use you for restoring peace and dub you as a killer?” Bukhari said.
Interestingly, Bukhari was almost disowned even by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed a day after the duo addressed a public rally in Kupwara and Mufti introduced the retired officer as “senior leader of PDP”. Bukhari’s admission in PDP ruffled a many feathers in the part as scores of the youngsters threatened to quit if the man of high counterinsurgency background passed off as a PDP leader. He, however, denied having joined any party.
Mufti Govt may pay Rs 50 Lakh to Massarat
Meanwhile, official sources revealed to local news agency that after describing Massarat Alam’s detention as “illegal”, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government would find it hard to contest the Muslim League leader’s Rs 50 Lakh compensation claim pending in a habeus corpus petition before the J&K High Court.
Massarat has claimed the compensation after different benches of the High Court quashed his detention under Public Safety Act which had been slapped on him as many as 13 times during his 53-month-long imprisonment since October 18, 2010. His last detention, ordered by District Magistrate of Jammu on the dossier of SSP Jammu on September 15, 2014, did not sustain in Supreme Court as a result of lapses and carelessness in different departments and the DM’s failure to get his order approved under law by the State Home Department within the stipulated period of twelve days.
It became clear on Tuesday that the officials during Governor’s rule had slept over the DM’s order, apparently by carelessness, until the detention period almost expired, making the whole process illegal. In the famous petition Bhim Singh versus State of J&K, High Court had forced the government to pay compensation of Rs 50,000 towards the petitioner MLA whose attendance in Assembly had been blocked by Police with detention in late 1980s. Massarat’s petition is scheduled for hearing in Srinagar on April 7th.
“No, why should we pay him compensation, We will contest it”, Law Secretary Mohammad Ashraf Mir said. Advocate General Ishaq Qadri said that he had put in his papers after the Omar Abdullah government failed to get mandate. “Under a new order, Government has asked me to continue. But I have no brief from the new government on this subject”, Qadri said