The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday filed a case to investigate the sensational escape of a Pakistani lashkar-e-Tayyeba (leT) terrorist Naveed Jatt from a hospital premises in Srinagar last week. Before the handcuffed terrorist escaped on February 6 morning, he and his accomplices shot dead two policemen and rode off on a motorbike.
Naveed was lodged in Central Jail Srinagar and complained of severe chest pain as an alibi to visit Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar. He had hatched a conspiracy to flee from jail in coordination with several overground workers. Police have claimed that two terrorists and their accomplices have been arrested for facilitating Naveed’s escape.
The authorities have already suspended jail superintendent Hilal Ahmad Rather and removed Director General of Police (prisons) SK Mishra. A senior counterinsurgency officer Dilbagh Singh was posted as DG prisons.
“Today NIA registered case RC No 05/2018 related to the escape from custody of leT terrorist Naveed Jutt from SMHS hospital in Srinagar. In this regard a case FIR number 08/2018 was registered by the local Police at Karan Nagar in Srinagar district,” an NIA spokesman said in a statement.
Jatt, who has told his interrogators that he has met Mumbai attack convict Ajmal Kasab, who was later hanged to death, in a training camp in Pakistan. A resident of Multan in Punjab province of Pakistan, Naveed was 17 when he was arrested by police in a dramatic fashion in south Kashmir in June 2014.
Soon after his escape, Naveed surfaced on social networking sites along-with a Hizbul Mujahideen commander, both brandishing assault rifles.
Before his escape, Naveed and his accomplices shot dead two police personnel Head constable Mushtaq Ahmed and constable Babar Ahmed. “The NIA team is proceeding to Srinagar tomorrow (Tuesday) to take up the investigation of the case,” the statement said.