Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Monday said the Centre had “taken note” of Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik sharing dais with one of India’s most-wanted terrorist Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan and action would be taken against him at a “proper time.”
Stating that the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader has been put under house arrest by the State police after he reached Srinagar, Mr. Shinde told journalists here that the government was aware of what had happened during Mr. Malik’s visit to Pakistan. He, however, refused to answer whether the government would revoke his passport.
Mr. Malik, who went to Pakistan last month to visit his wife and daughter, was seen with the Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief, the mastermind behind the Mumbai terror attacks, at a function organised to condole the hanging of Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru.
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Mr. Shinde, however, ruled out handing over of Guru’s body to his family in Kashmir. “The body has been buried according to the jail manual and there was no way it could be handed over… Guru’s family can come and pay respects at his grave [inside the Tihar jail complex],” he said.
200 insurgents surrender
Claiming that the law and order situation was better in the northeast, Mr. Shinde said about 200 insurgents active in Manipur had surrendered and many others would follow suit in the next three months. A total of 197 armed cadres of the United Revolutionary Front (URF), the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) and two factions of the Kanglei Yawal Kanna Lup (KYKL) had surrendered on February 13, he added.
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Pointing out that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Manipur government had taken a major initiative to rehabilitate militants fighting against the state, he said the URF, comprising various factions of the KCP and its military wing, the Manipur Army have agreed to the surrender of its cadres within the next three months. About 80 cadres of two factions of KYKL – Athouba and Achouba – would surrender within three months, he added.
Revised NCTC
Referring to the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Mr. Shinde said the MHA would circulate a revised note on it ahead of the Chief Ministers Conference on internal security to be held in the first week of April. “In any case, this centre will be out of the ambit of the Intelligence Bureau,” he said. The NCTC has been put on hold following opposition from non-Congress Chief Ministers.