Hizb revolt, Sopore killings rooted in rejected hit-list : The Tribune India

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Hizb revolt, Sopore killings rooted in rejected hit-list

SOPORE: A hit-list of alleged informers pasted in bazaars of Sopore town became the root of a revolt within Kashmir’s oldest militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen and subsequent killings of individuals linked to region’s separatism, The Tribune had learnt.



Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Sopore, June 21

A hit-list of alleged informers pasted in bazaars of Sopore town became the root of a revolt within Kashmir’s oldest militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen and subsequent killings of individuals linked to region’s separatism, The Tribune had learnt.

The list was prepared by Hizbul Mujahideen’s top commander for north Kashmir, Abdul Qayoom Najar, and was made public on October 2 last year, police sources told 

The Tribune.

The sources said the list, which also contained the names of at least two middle-rung separatist leaders, was rejected by Hizbul Mujahideen’s Pakistan-based leadership.

The veto, made during a lengthy conversation on October 6, and public disavowal of the list caused the rift within Hizbul Mujahideen, with local militants gravitating around Najar, the field commander in north Kashmir for nearly a decade, the police 

sources said.

The transcript of the intercepted conversation between Najar, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and a third militant Zahid, who police suspected was an alias of Tariq Mir, in which they discussed the names on the hit-list, was in possession of investigators, the sources said.

Najar, along with more than a dozen local and a few Pakistani militants, later formed Lashkar-e-Islam and launched attacks on telecom sector, causing a paralysing effect on mobile phone communication, the sources said.

There had been no contact between Najar’s group and Pakistan-based militant leadership since the October conversation, the sources said.

Six individuals had been killed in Sopore town and its peripheral villages in past month in attacks 

suspected to have been carried out by Lashkar-e-Islam.

The outfit had so far commented on the first two killings, claiming that the BSNL employee was killed unintentionally and accused the former militant, Ghulam Hassan Dar of Dooru village, of being an informer.

A key separatist amalgam led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani made a scathing attack on Lashkar-e-Islam, claiming on June 2 that it had evidence to prove that the new outfit was a creation of Indian intelligence agencies.

Lashkar-e-Islam, in a detailed statement of its objectives and actions published in Urdu newspapers on June 6, reacted to Geelani-led amalgam’s allegation by asking the separatist leader to probe the role of his associates in the killing of four militants, including Javaid Salafi of Anantnag district, Mufti Hilal of Palhalan village and Adil Mir of Tral.

Immediately after Lashkar-e-Islam’s detailed statement, hinting at moles within the separatist ranks, Lashkar-e-Toiba issued a clarification, saying “Indian agents” were found involved in killing of Mufti Hilal and claimed its investigation had found the close aide of Muslim League leader Masarat Alam as “innocent”.

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