CBI arrests absconder in 1989 Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case in Srinagar

CBI on Monday arrested an “absconder” carrying a Rs 10 lakh reward in connection with the sensational 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed, the daughter of the then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, for allegedly being part of a conspiracy hatched by members of the banned JKLF terror group. The person, identified as Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, is alleged to be a close confidant of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik.

 The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested an “absconder”, Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, wanted in the 35-year-old case relating to the kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed, the agency said in a statement.

“The said accused Shangloo conspired with Yasin Malik and others in committing a crime under various sections of the Ranbir Penal Code and the TADA Act during the Year 1989. The absconder is carrying a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head. He will be produced before the TADA Court Jammu, within the stipulated time as per law,” the CBI Spokesperson said.

According to officials, Shangloo was allegedly an office bearer of the banned terror group and was handling the outfit’s finances.

The CBI, along with the Jammu and Kashmir Police, arrested Shangloo from his residence in the Nishat area in Srinagar after following the due legal process, the officials said. Malik, who has been attending the court hearings through video-conferencing, has been identified by eyewitnesses, including Rubaiyya Sayeed.

  The JKLF chief, who is serving a jail term in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in a terror financing case, is not produced in the court physically due to a Ministry of Home Affairs order restricting his movement.

During the court hearings, Sayeed had identified four other accused besides Malik of being involved in the heinous crime.  She was abducted from near Lal Ded Hospital in Srinagar on December 8, 1989, and was freed five days later after the then VP Singh Government, which was supported by the BJP, at the Centre released five terrorists in exchange.  Now living in Tamil Nadu, Sayeed is listed as a prosecution witness by the CBI, which took over the case in 1990.  Malik, 56, was sentenced by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in May last year. He was arrested in early 2019 in connection with the 2017 terror financing case registered by the NIA.

In order to expedite the trial, the CBI had appointed its senior counsel Monika Kohli as the chief prosecutor after framing charges against Malik in the much-publicised cases related to the Sayeed’s abduction and killing of four IAF personnel in Srinagar more than three decades ago.

Kohli, a leading lawyer, has been representing the CBI as a retainer counsel in the High Court for the last one decade and had successfully opposed bail to Malik in the two sensational cases which had taken place in 1989-90 when militancy broke out in the valley.

A special TADA court has already framed charges against Malik and nine others in the kidnapping case of Sayeed.