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The Jammu and Kashmir Police have achieved a massive breakthrough in the dramatic escape of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba commander Naveed alias Abu Hanzalla. All the five persons who helped him at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS Hospital) in Srinagar have been arrested in a series of raids in Pulwama district, and authorities have suspended the Superintendent of Srinagar Central Jail and initiated the process of removing the entire medical staff from the Valley’s largest prison.
SK Mishra said that a departmental enquiry being conducted by a DIG of Prisons Department would find out the circumstances that led to Abu Hanzalla’s passage to SMHS Hospital and his escape from judicial custody, while killing two armed guards of the police. The enquiry would help the government fix responsibility and initiate criminal and departmental action against the guilty officials.
Sources in the police later said that the ASP in Anantnag, Mr Mukesh, had immediately taken over charge of the Srinagar Central Jail.
Director Health Services Kashmir, Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman, said that the government has made it clear that the entire medical and paramedical staff from Srinagar Central Jail should be removed and replaced within next 24 hours.
He disclosed that the service records of the medical staff posted at the jail were being examined by the administrative department in Jammu, and orders of their attachment and replacement were expected by Thursday evening or Friday.
Dr Rehman admitted that many of the Health Department’s officials had overstayed on their postings in Srinagar Central Jail for over 3 to 10 years. “They are sent there on deputation basis. We normally order their replacement if a requisition comes in from the Jail Superintendent. Since no such demand has been received in the last many years, they continued to overstay,” he added.
“We have successfully identified them all through the CCTV footage — human and technical evidence — and got them arrested from their respective homes and hideouts in Pulwama-Pampore belt of South Kashmir in a series of raids last night,” said an officer associated with the investigation. He said that the cousin of the dreaded Hizbul Mujahideen commander in Pulwama was among the five detainees.
Abu Hanzalla’s escape has exposed the porosity and vulnerability of Srinagar Central Jail, where hundreds of dreaded criminals and militants stand lodged.
An influential support structure, reportedly active at different levels in J&K Police, Prisons Department, Health Department, Law Department and Prosecution Wing of the State Home Department (that functions directly under the Chief Minister), has ‘crippled’ the system of lodging separatists and high-profile militants in different jails.
In two raids in the last two years, the police have recovered over 20 SIM cards and smartphones, and even refrigerators placed by private vendors for high-profile separatist and militant leaders from prisoners from Baramulla District Jail.
Interestingly, the same convict, noted for his ‘jihadist’ ideology, has done a Masters and Doctorate while in jail, and has been engaged as a ‘lecturer’ by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). Last fortnight, he has said in a newspaper interview that he has tutored 150 student prisoners on behalf of IGNOU.
(The writer is a Srinagar-based journalist. He can be reached @ahmedalifayyaz. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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