A 50-year-old man identified as Bashir Ahmed Ponnu, an alleged Jaish-e-Mohammed militant, has been arrested from Srinagar by the Special Cell, the police said on Tuesday. A reward of ₹2 lakh was announced on his arrest.
DCP (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said that Bashir was arrested by the unit along with three other alleged JeM operatives Shahid Gafoor, Fayaz Ahmed Lone, and Abdul Majid Baba in 2007 after a shoot-out.
The police claim to have had recovered detonators, hand grenades, arms and ammunition from their possession at the time and a case under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was registered.
In 2013, a Delhi court convicted Gafoor and acquitted the other three. However, the Delhi HC convicted all of them and sentenced them for life imprisonment in 2014. They evaded arrest despite non-bailable warrants issued against them.
Subsequently, in March this year, Fayaz Ahmed Lone was arrested and in May, Abdul Majid Baba was held from Srinagar. “On Monday, Bashir’s location was traced to Srinagar’s Kothibagh from where he was nabbed. His transit remand was sought and he was brought to Delhi,” Mr. Yadav said.
Police informer
The police said that before Bashir’s 2007 arrest, he was a fruit seller. Mr. Yadav claimed that Bashir’s cousin had joined terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen in 1990 but later surrendered before the Border Security Force and became their informer. On cousin’s pursuance, Bashir also started working as an informer, the police said.
However, in 2002 the police said, one JeM operative Ghulam Rasool approached Bashir and asked him to join JeM in lieu of money to which he allegedly agreed.
“They assigned him the task to collect hawala money from their outfit in Maharashtra and bring it to Kashmir. Eventually, he came in contact with other JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives who introduced him to Pakistan militant Haider after which he started providing logistic help to members of JeM,” Mr. Yadav said, adding that the accused, along with Fayaz and Baba had come to Delhi in 2007 to hand over huge consignment of arms, and ammunition to Gafoor.
