J&K Govt moves SC to shift ultra from Jammu

New Delhi, February 15

A day after the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were martyred, the Jammu and Kashmir Government on Friday moved the Supreme Court seeking that Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Zahid Farooq be shifted from Jammu jail to Tihar, saying he is “indoctrinating” Indian inmates.

A Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and MR Shah agreed to examine the plea and issued notice to Centre and sought its response in four weeks. Farooq was arrested by security forces while trying to cross border security fence on May 19, 2016.

The state government said that intelligence inputs indicated that militants belonging to terror outfits like Jaish and LeT were indoctrinating the minds of other inmates lodged in the prison.

It said that it had been reliably learnt that the prisoner and other similarly situated individuals had considerable local support and it couldn’t be ruled out 

that they may be receiving information, resources as well as other help to carry out terror activities.

The state also sought shifting of the trial to Delhi saying it apprehended that transporting the militant to court and back to prison posed a threat to escorting policemen and common public.

State’s standing counsel Shoeb Alam cited an example of an attack on a police party last year when policemen were killed and a Pakistani terrorist freed from custody while on a hospital visit. “The petitioner State has received confidential intelligence inputs which show that he poses a threat to national security in as much as his involvement in planning and designing terror attacks against the citizens/residents in India cannot be ruled out. 

“To execute such nefarious schemes, it is understood that the prisoner and other similarly situated individuals have been mobilising support within the jail premises by influencing the minds and psyche of other inmates,” the state government said. 

Transfer of Farooq from his current prison in Jammu & Kashmir to a high-security prison outside the state was in the interest of national security, it said.  — PTI