NIA Probe Reveals Ex-Punjab DGP’s Links With Tainted Businessman

The retired IPS officer’s alleged partner in Srinagar is known for his links with two militant outfits.

An NIA probe has revealed that an ex J&K cadre IPS officer is in cahoots with a prominent and tainted Kashmiri businessman.

(Photo: The Quint)

An Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Jammu and Kashmir cadre, batch 1974, who had held senior positions before his retirement as Punjab’s Director General of Police (DGP) in 2012, has dramatically surfaced as the “collaborator” and “partner” of a prominent Kashmiri businessman.

This was revealed during the current National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the money allegedly received by separatists through hawala and other illegal channels.

Also Read: ED Files Money Laundering Case Against LeT, Hurriyat and Others

Notorious Businessman Bought Land With the IPS Officer?

According to a dossier prepared by the NIA after their probe, the Srinagar-based businessman (whose residential and business premises were raided on 3-4 June) had bought properties and land at several places in Kashmir, including at Ompora and Doodh Pathri (Budgam), Ahmad Nagar and Zaffran Colony (Srinagar).

He also has houses in Dubai, Jammu and Srinagar.

As per the NIA dossier accessed by The Quint, the same businessman is also “learnt to have bought some properties outside the state in New Delhi, Gurgaon and Punjab, also in collaboration and partnership” with a former DGP of Punjab.

The retired IPS officer hailing from Punjab has served as DIG Srinagar and IGP Kashmir twice before heading the State Vigilance Organisation and holding other DGP rank positions in J&K until June 2009, when he was appointed as DGP in the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government of the then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Even as the IPS officer put up an exceptionally brilliant performance on the counterinsurgency front in Jammu and Kashmir and enjoyed a good reputation for many decades in his career, his name is learnt to have figured in the hawala-tainted businessman’s dubious property acquisitions outside J&K.

Also Read: NIA Summons Two Kashmiri Separatist Leaders in Delhi

J&K Cadre IPS Officer Was Appointed as Punjab's DGP

Badal had sought special permission from the Centre for inducting the J&K cadre IPS as DGP of Punjab as he had to supersede three DG-rank officers in Punjab, including his elder brother.

The Punjab Police Act was amended to make provision for appointing an officer from outside the state as DGP.

After his retirement in 2012, the IPS officer joined Badal’s SAD and unsuccessfully contested the assembly election from his home constituency Moga district. Long back, his father had represented the same constituency on a Congress ticket in Punjab Assembly before he was assassinated in a terrorist attack.

Also Read: ED Arrests Separatist Leader Shabir Shah in Srinagar

For a brief period after his retirement, he also served as Security Advisory to Punjab’s Home Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

In a dramatic development, the same IPS officer, post-retirement, returned to J&K, where he joined the BJP and campaigned in Srinagar for the party throughout the assembly elections in 2014.

He also figured as a contender for the post of governor in J&K amid speculations that the Modi government at the Centre would prefer its own choice in place of NN Vohra at the Raj Bhavan.

The year 2014 proved to be inauspicious for the police officer-turned-politician as the BJP failed to win a single seat in Kashmir. In Punjab, he was charged with grabbing 157 acres of Sainimajra village’s common panchayat (Shamilat-e-Deh) land on the banks of a seasonal rivulet in Mohali district.

A month before contesting the January 2012 assembly polls on the ruling SAD ticket from Moga, he had allegedly gotten hold of a huge chunk of the environmentally-protected land mutated in his name, allegedly in connivance with the then Majri block naib tehsildar Roopinder Manku. Manku was suspended, but later his suspension was revoked “pending inquiry”.

Also Read: Hawala Operator Held in Mumbai For Funding Suspected ISI Man

Indirect Links With Militant Outfits

It was on 25 September 2013 that the Majri block development officer (BDO) had written to the Kurali (Sadar) police station to file a case of land grabbing against the retired DGP under Section 13 of the Punjab Village Panchayat Common (Regulation) Act and various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The communiqué stated that the former DGP was encroaching upon and trespassing and plundering this huge chunk of land where any deforestation activity, such as cutting of trees, was banned under the Punjab Land Protection Act (PLPA).

The retired IPS officer’s alleged partner in Srinagar belongs to a highly influential relative’s network of senior government officials, top bureaucrats, including two IAS officers who retired at rank of Chief Secretary and Financial Commissioner, besides top ranking serving and retired Police officers.

Also Read: Kashmir Terror Funding: NIA Raids Locations in J&K and Delhi

For decades, he was known for his proximity to a particular separatist organisation and two militant outfits and had once been arrested in 1990.

Some senior JKLF militants had also been arrested in the same BSF raid and a quantity of arms and ammunition had also been seized from his premises.

However, political and bureaucratic interventions from top corridors of power always took this businessman off the hook and all the hawala-related matters against him were hushed up.

Also Read: 7 Arrested Hurriyat Leaders Sent to 10-Day NIA Custody

(The writer is a Srinagar-based journalist. He can be reached @ahmedalifayyaz.)

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