JAMMU: The speaker of Kashmir’s legislative assembly has disallowed an adjournment motion seeking discussion on the arrest of a former Kashmiri militant who returned from Pakistan with his family.
Liyaqat Ali Shah, a resident of northern Kashmir’s Lolab area, was arrested by the Delhi police last week after he returned from Pakistan and entered India via Nepal.
They accuse him of being an active militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen sent from Pakistan to carry out a strike in New Delhi ahead of the Holi festival.
But the authorities in Kashmir say Shah was a former militant and that they had all the information about his return from Pakistan. They say they had approved his request under the militant ‘surrender and rehabilitation’ policy launched by New Delhi.
Shah’s wife and daughter, who accompanied him to India via Nepal after flying from Pakistan reached home on Saturday.
Liyaqat Ali’s arrest has triggered a major row, with the Delhi and Kashmir police making efforts to prove themselves right.
The state’s ruling National Conference party had given notice of the adjournment motion in the assembly asking “why a Kashmiri was being targeted, particularly when he was on his way home to surrender to police.”
The government in Kashmir is fuming at Shah’s arrest and see it as a setback to the flagship project of facilitating the return of former militants from Indian administered Kashmir who are living in Pakistan.
However, speaker Mubarak Gul disallowed it saying it was not needed since Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had already taken up the matter with Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and sought a probe into it by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
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The militant rehabilitation policy was introduced by New Delhi in 2010 for militants who had crossed over to Pakistan-administered Kashmir to be trained and join militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
The government has so far received 1089 applications from such militants, chief minister Omar Abdullah recently told the legislative assembly.
Nobody has officially returned yet as the policy could not take off due to Pakistan’s cold response to it.
However still, 233 militants have managed to reach the valley, many of them with their families, unofficially through the neigbouring Nepal. Liyaqat Ali Shah was not that lucky.
Observers further say his arrest could deter other former militants in Pakistan waiting to return home.
Also Read: Kashmiri Accused of Plotting Delhi Attack ‘Was Happily Returning Home With Family’
