SRINAGAR: Police in South Kashmir have arrested two persons, allegedly linked to a security force’s unit, and launched a manhunt for two more for masquerading as militants and extorting an amount of Rs 32,000 from a dental sugeon’s home in Qazigund area.
“On Sunday evening, December 27, my brother Dr Bilal Beg was in Delhi in connection with a conference. Our parents, like in the last several winters, were in Jammu. I was at my brother’s house at Khriwan (Kulgam) alongwith my husband Dr Rizwan, an adopted daughter, Rehana (19) and my young son. Suddenly some strangers walked into our kitchen. I could see the one who was not veiled but was holding a gun. He forced us to switch off the lights and our mobile phones. He received a call and we heard somebody telling him that Dr Bilal was hiding inside and his black colour Santro was on the premises”, a dental technician at Trauma Hospital Qazigund, Yasmeena narrated to STATE TIMES.
“The armed intruders began asking about Dr Bilal. They asked my husband if he was Dr Bilal. He told them that Dr Bilal had gone to Delhi and identified himself to them as Dr Rizwan. Thereafter they said that were in need of some financial help. I offered them Rs 2,000 but they said it was insufficient. When we realized that they would not relent before taking away a considerable amount, my husband went to another room and handed them Rs 32,000. Still, they said they would have to stay there for a night. On our sustained persuasion they withdrew. While walking out, they warned us against calling Army and said that their chief Abu Qasim had been got similarly killed. They said they would leave only to regard Dr Rizwan’s beard but said that two of their Pakistani mujahideen could again visit us in a couple of days”, Yasmeena added.
Yasmeena narrated the whole story to her brother Dr Bilal who complained the matter to SSP Kulgam Mumtaz Ahmad as well as SHO Qazigund Inspector Pervez.
On Tuesday, Yasmeena, who was attending patients at her hospital OPD, witnessed the same person, who had extorted money from the family at Khriwan, escorting a female patient for treatment. She asked the girl to wait outside and enquired from her helper Iqbal if he know the female patient’s attendant. “Why do you ask? He is Muzaffar Ahmad Bhat of Nusu, a notorious thief”, Iqbal revealed to Yasmeena. She called Dr Bilal who returning towards home from Srinagar airport. He immediately passed on the second input to Police.
On the night intervening December 29 and 30, Police conducted a raid and arrested Muzaffar Bhat. During sustained interrogation, he identified one of his accomplices as Nisar and maintained that Nisar alone knew two others of the gang.
According to Dr Bilal, one of his neighbours working with Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JAKLI), and attached to an army camp at Larkipora, came to his home on Wednesday, December 30. The soldier, Mohammad Yousuf Teeli, was accompanied by his parents and sister. He beseeched Dr Bilal to withdraw the FIR and admitted that two of Army’s rifles, which were in his possession, had been misused for the extortion. Teeli admitted being an accomplice with Muzaffar Bhat and two others.
“Police have registered FIR (303 of 2015) and arrested Muzaffar and Nisar. But, we have apprehensions that the matter is being hushed up as the Police have neither detained Teeli and another person nor seized the guns misused for extortion and harassment”, Dr Bilal said.
While as DIG South Kashmir Nitish Kumar and Defence spokesman Col. NN Joshi did not respond to phone calls from this newspaper, SSP Mumtaz confirmed that two of the four accused had been arrested. He said that search was underway for two more persons wanted in the investigation. Asked why soldier Teeli, who had admitted his involvement publicly in his village, had not been arrested, Mumtaz said that “this part of investigation will be taken up in due course of time”. “We have to check whether it were the real rifles issued by Army or the fake ones used by the extortionists. It will take time”, SSP Kulgam told STATE TIMES.