The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, a fugitive carrying a reward of 10 lakh rupees, for his alleged involvement in the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed, the daughter of the then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. According to investigators, he is suspected of being part of a conspiracy formed by members of the banned Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.
Shangloo, described as a close associate of JKLF chief Yasin Malik, had been wanted for more than three decades.The CBI stated that he conspired with Malik and others under various provisions of the Ranbir Penal Code and the TADA Act. The agency confirmed that he will be produced before the TADA Court in Jammu as required by law.
Officials revealed that Shangloo had allegedly served in an organisational role within the banned group and was responsible for managing its finances. He was taken into custody from his residence in the Nishat area of Srinagar during an operation conducted jointly by the CBI and Jammu and Kashmir Police.
Yasin Malik, currently imprisoned in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in a terror financing case, attends court hearings through video conferencing due to restrictions imposed on his movement by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Eyewitnesses, including Rubaiyya Sayeed herself, have identified him in connection with the kidnapping.
Rubaiyya Sayeed was abducted near Lal Ded Hospital in Srinagar on December 8, 1989, and was released 05 days later after the central government led by V P Singh, with BJP support, freed 05 militants in exchange. She is now living in Tamil Nadu and has been listed by the CBI as a prosecution witness since the agency took over the case in 1990.
Malik, aged fifty six, was convicted by a special NIA court in May last year. He had been arrested in early 2019 for a 2017 terror financing case filed by the National Investigation Agency.
To speed up the trial process, the CBI appointed its senior counsel, Monika Kohli, as the chief prosecutor after charges were framed against Malik in cases involving both the kidnapping and the killing of four IAF personnel in Srinagar over 30 years ago.
Kohli, who has represented the CBI in the High Court for a decade, successfully opposed Malik’s bail pleas in the major cases that occurred during the early years of militancy in Kashmir. A special TADA court has already framed charges against Malik and nine other accused individuals in the kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed.
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