The police on Friday detained the spouse of a top Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant declared fugitive by National Investigating Agency (NIA) probing the September 7, 2011 Delhi high court blast and her parents from a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir’s eastern district of Kishtwar for questioning.
The action comes amidst reports that Tasleema Begum was seen with her husband Shakir Hussein alias Chota Hafiz alias Adil in the hills about a fortnight ago. Reports said that a police party raided the residence of the militant commander’s in-laws at Tata Pani on early Friday and detained the 25-year-old housewife and her parents. They were immediately relocated to the district headquarters Kishtwar where a joint team of officials from the J&K police and NIA was questioning them about the whereabouts of Chota Hafiz, reports added.
The NIA has announced a cash reward of Rs one million to anyone giving information about Chota Hafiz and two other accused Aamir Ali Kamal alias Akram and Junaid Akram Malik alias Juni alias Umair, who are absconding and are believed to be hiding in the Kishtwar-Doda hills. Junaid is the younger brother of Wasim Akram Malik, a medical student at Shylet near Dhaka, Bangladesh, arrested from New Delhi’s IGI airport in September 2011 and sent to Tihar jail after the NIA completed his interrogation. He was accused of being involved in hatching of conspiracy and subsequent claiming of responsibility for the blast that had killed 12 persons besides two other suspects Aamir Malik and Jehangir Saroori. An email claiming the responsibility for the blast on behalf of Harkat-ul-Jehad al-Islami was sent from a cyber cafe in Kishtwar.
Meanwhile, the frontier town of Rajouri continued to reel under round-the-clock curfew for the third consecutive day on Friday as tensions persist following minor clashes between the members of two major religious communities and attacks on police.
The town has been on the boil following a hate speech at a rally by the VHP international working president Pravin Togadia on Sunday. The local police has registered a case against him.