After recovering 11 smartphones from the custody of high profile political detainees, lodged in a MLA hostel at Maulana Azad road in Srinagar, during a surprise raid, Jammu & Kashmir Police has launched a thorough probe to identify ‘black sheeps’ who may have aided smuggling of these handsets inside the highly fortified premises.

According to official sources, “at least 11 mobile phones were recovered from the sub jail on Saturday from the detainees during regular anti-sabotage check”.

Local police authorities have registered a case ahead of launching a thorough probe in the matter.

It is learnt, the Union Home Ministry too had taken serious note of the security breach and is likely to issue necessary directions to the UT administration to punish the guilty after  completing thorough probe in the matter.

Before shifting political detainees in the MLA’s hostel last week, the same was declared as a Sub-Jail and it was made mandatory to follow jail manual strictly.

Official sources said, “the anti-sabotage raid was conducted as part of regular exercise to detect presence of any item, which these political detainees, were not entitled to use”.

According to official sources, among 33 detainees, General secretary of National Conference (NC), Ali Mohammad Sagar, Naeem Akhtar of PDP, Chairman of Peoples Conference Sajjad Lone and bureaucrat turned politician Shah Faesal were lodged there in the hostel. 

Interestingly, when these political detainees were shifted from the Centaur hotel to MLA’s hostel, they too had resisted thorough frisking by the security personnel.

The political detainees had raised hue and cry over inadequate facilities in the centaur hotel to beat the winter chill. On their arrival in MLA’s hostel, they again raised the issue of poor facilities and created scene to hide their mobile phones. The same was used by them to stay in touch with their family members and communicate with their well wishers.

Official sources claimed, some of these detainees were using the mobile handsets even when they were lodged in a hotel.

Official sources claimed, family members of these detainees may have smuggled these items inside the hostel with the help of security personnel deployed there in the multi-tier security ring.

Official sources said, the investigating agencies would be screening the CCTV footage and other material like call details and messages to ascertain the list of persons who were in touch with these political detainees since August 5.