Day on, Jammu court frees Rubaiya Sayeed abduction suspect

A day after the CBI arrested Srinagar resident Shafat Ahmed Shangloo for his alleged involvement in the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of then Union Home Minister and former J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, a special TADA court in Jammu on Tuesday set him free.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Madan Lal rejected the CBI plea seeking Shangloo’s custody in the nearly 36-year-old case that had rocked the nation. The kidnapping was carried out by Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front terrorists, including its jailed chief Yasin Malik.

CBI lawyer SK Bhat said the court examined the chargesheet submitted by the probe agency and found no evidence against the suspect, after which he was set free. During his brief interaction with the media, Shangloo said the court “had done justice with him by setting him free”.

Shangloo’s lawyer Sohail Dar said his client was set free and would not be under investigation as no evidence was found against him.

Rubaiya, who now lives in Tamil Nadu, was kidnapped from near Lal Ded Hospital in Srinagar on December 8, 1989. She was freed after five days when the Centre released five terrorists in her exchange. In 2022, she identified Yasin Malik, who is imprisoned in Tihar Jail in a terror-funding case, as one of the accused in her kidnapping.