Delhi Police left red-faced, NIA clears ‘terrorist’

The chargesheet, filed before the special court, yet again counters Delhi Police Special Cell claims of Shah being a wanted terrorist. It adds that further investigations were on to determine the “conspiracy” to implicate Shah.

The NIA also points out that the address of Khan alias ‘Pathan’ as mentioned in a lodge in old Delhi as well as the one supplied by him for his SIM card was “Barrack No. 2, Special Cell Niwas, BG 21, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi”.

The chargesheet names Khan under the Arms Act and Explosives Substances Act, and with forgery and using fake documents under the IPC.

Khan had reportedly been working with the Delhi Police as an informer for over 10 years, passing on information on terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir. According to sources, he had helped the Special Cell bust several modules.

Shah was arrested by the Special Cell on March 20, 2013, while returning from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir via Nepal. He was projected as a militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen who had come to carry out strikes in the national capital to avenge the hanging of Afzal Guru. The Delhi Police claimed to have also averted a terror strike in Delhi with Shah’s arrest.

The J&K Police had dismissed these claims, saying Shah was returning home as per the state government’s policy of allowing people, who had exfiltrated to PoK in the early 1990s, to come back.

The NIA probe held this to be true, though the chargesheet does not mention the status of Shah’s surrender application. “Shah was wanted in several terror cases and we have evidence regarding the same,” a police source said.

A statement issued by the NIA said, “The case was originally registered to investigate a criminal conspiracy to commit fidayeen attacks on undisclosed vital installations in Delhi. During the investigation the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Sayyed Liyakatt Shah on the charges of coming into India to effectuate a conspiracy to commit attacks in New Delhi through the Indo-Nepal border at Sanauli UP.

On the basis of the disclosure statement, the Special Cell had conducted a raid at the Room No. 304, Jama Masjid, and recovered arms and ammunition. The investigation has revealed that the charges against Shah were not proved and that Sabir Pathan was responsible for placements of the weapons in the guest room.”

The Special Cell had seized an AK-56 rifle, three hand-grenades from the guesthouse.

While the NIA claimed to have CCTV footage of a man wearing a cap placing the ammunition in the room, the Special Cell countered it saying that they were the ones to access the CCTV footage first and it had only vague images.

Shah, who now lives with his family in village Dardpora of Kupwara in Kashmir, has heard the news. NIA officials informed him that he had been cleared of all charges.

‘’First I couldn’t believe it but an official who identified himself as Bhatti sahib told me that I need to come to Delhi for the last time on January 30 as all the charges against me have been proven wrong and I will be a free man now,” Liaquat said. “I will definitively travel to Delhi… I want no pending case remaining against me there,” he says.

Khan himself has been missing since the case was shifted to the NIA, and he was declared a proclaimed offender by court.

His family, who lives in Gelana of Shajahpur district in Madhya Pradesh, had expressed its inability to give his whereabouts and told the NIA that they feared for his life.

Former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah, who had raised Liaquat’s arrest with the Union Home Ministry, welcomed the NIA move. “I am happy that truth has finally come out and I hope that security agencies do not target Kashmiris to achieve their ulterior motives.”