Why didnt you bump off this man? Why did you get him alive? Omar told Bukhari
JAMMU — The former counter-insurgency cop of Kashmir, Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, has claimed that the former chief minister, Omar Abdullah, wanted to see Masarat Alam dead and paid him a cash reward of Rs 25 lakh after the senior Hurriyat leader’s arrest at the peak of 2010 Kashmir Uprising.
Bukhari, who served as Srinagar’s Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) during the 2010 summer unrest which saw the death of over 120 people, mainly youth, at the hand of government forces, today claimed that Alam, who was recently released by Mufti Sayeed’s government, would “in no way subscribe to peace and normality in the strife-ravaged region.”
In an exclusive conversation with this correspondent, the retired Police official Bukhari described Masarat as a “staunch jihad activist and die-hard supporter of Pakistan and LeT.” Bukhari said Alam would change others for secession but would never change to absorb himself in the Indian national mainstream.
He said none other than Masarat sponsored and controlled the three-month-long mayhem in Kashmir and it was on account of his high profile that the Omar Abdullah-led government put a cash reward of Rs10 lakh on the underground activist’s head.
“It took us months of hardwork coupled with human and technical intelligence to get ourselves 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 10 lakh on his head, which I received from the DGP, Omar Abdullah gave me extra of 15 Lakh from his own pocket. He also granted out of turn promotion to seven personnel of my team,” Bukhari claimed.
Bukhari, who played a key role in containing protests, though by controversial methods of arresting hundreds of youth and using strong-arm tactics to quell the turbulence, under the leadership of Inspector general of police (IGP) SM Sahai and Director General of Police (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”.
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 INR 5 MILLION TO MASARAT
Meanwhile, official sources revealed that after describing Masarat Alam’s detention as “illegal”, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government would find it hard to contest the Muslim League leader’s 5 million compensation claim pending in a habeus corpus petition before the J&K High Court.
Masarat 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 INR 50,000 towards the petitioner MLA whose attendance in Assembly had been blocked by Police with detention in late 1980s. Masarat’s petition is scheduled for hearing in Srinagar on April 7.
“No, why should we pay him compensation, We will contest it,” Law Secretary Mohammad Ashraf Mir said. Advocate General Ishaq Qadri said 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. –Authint Mail
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