NIA takes custody of Udhampur attack militant Naveed
The National Investigating Agency (NIA) has taken the custody of captured Pakistani militant Naveed Yakub and have shifted him to Jammu.
The National Investigating Agency (NIA) has taken the custody of captured Pakistani militant Naveed Yakub and have shifted him to Jammu.
The shift happened in the morning after Naveed identified the hideouts used by him after he crossed into Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district from Pakistan. The captured militant also identified the chain of supporters and other LeT cadres he met while planning the attack.
Naveed has been booked under the Unlawful Activity Prevention Act. The NIA has also slapped him with murder charges under section 302, for which the maximum sentence can be hanging.
Meanwhile, the NIA has arrested 12 persons, mostly supporters and facilitators from South Kashmir — which has been a strong-hold of the ruling PDP. The transfer of custody to the NIA according to sources has not gone down well with the party.
“The people who have been arrested are not LeT cadre, they have extended help some knowingly others totally unknowingly. But the NIA can book them also under the same Act which can mean years of imprisonment or even death,’’ said an official privy to the sources. “This step can affect their popularity,’’ he added.
Naveed was lodged in the office of the special operations group of the state police in Srinagar.
As per reports, Naveed had infiltrated through Tangdhar area of Kupwara and then travelled to Tangmarg area of Baramulla in North Kashmir. He stayed in Baba Reshi ain Tangmarg before proceeding towards Awantipore in South kashmir through Srinagar.
Although Naveed, had confessed that the BSF convoy he attacked on August 5 at Samroli was the target of his group’s fidayeen strike, officials suspect that the real target could have been Udhampur-based headquarters of the Army’s Northern Command.
Interrogation at Jammu and Srinagar had revealed that Naveed joined LeT in 2011. He had been trained in the same camp as Mumbai attack convict Ajmal Kasab.
Pakistani terrorist Naveed’s interrogators have traced his journey from Rafique Colony, Ghulam Mohammadabad, in Khurrianwala tehsil of Faisalabad in Pakistan, to near Udhampur, where he was caught.
His father Mohammad Yaqoob is a labourer while his mother is a housewife. He dropped out of school after Class 5 because of poverty and started helping his parents with domestic work.
