New DelhiAs many as 40 militants and their sympathisers have been shifted from the central jail here to prisons outside the Valley, a step taken after the dramatic escape of LeT’s Mohammed Naveed Jhatt from a hospital earlier this month.
The prison department chalked out a list of these militants and sympathisers in the central jail and immediately a movement order for shifting them was initiated, officials said here.
Three Pakistani militants including Mustafa, who was accused of killing 24 Kashmiri pandits at Nadimarg in 2003, were among those shifted to various jails outside the Kashmir Valley, they said.
Mustafa was accused by the police of being part of the conspiracy in the massacre.
The state home department, which had ignored earlier requests for shifting of these prisoners, took the decision after an internal enquiry pointed out about a “casual approach” being adopted by the department.
The Union home ministry had also come down heavily on the state government and directed it to fully review security measures in place in jails and transportation of inmates.
Among other prisoners shifted to district prison in Jammu were overground worker of Lashker-e-Taiba Ashfaq Ahmad Bhat, a militant of the same group Mohammad Aslam Malik, Hizbul Mujahideen militant Amir Nahi Wagey and another Pakistani militant Abdul Razak Baloch.
Shifting of hardened prisoners came after the escape of Jhatt, who was lodged in Srinagar central jail. He fled from a hospital in the city after he and his accomplice shot and killed two policemen accompanying him.