JAMMU — Barely 24 hours after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Shafat Ahmad Shangloo over the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Sayeed, a special court on Tuesday set him free, noting that there was no mention of him in the charge sheet filed by the agency.
The court refused to accept the agency’s plea for Shangloo’s custody for questioning over the kidnapping that occurred on December 8, 1989 and ended after five days with the release of five Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) militants by authorities.
The CBI had sought the custody of Shangloo in the TADA court here, claiming that he had been absconding all these 35 years.
Arrested on Monday from his residence in the Nishat area of Srinagar for allegedly being part of a conspiracy hatched by JKLF members to kidnap Rubaiya Sayeed, Shangloo carried a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head, according to the CBI counsel SK Bhat.
Shangloo is also alleged to be a close confidant of JKLF chief Yasin Malik and was the group’s office bearer and handled its finances.
In a statement after the arrest, the CBI said Shangloo conspired with Malik and others in committing offences under various sections of the Ranbir Penal Code and the TADA Act in 1989.
“The absconder was carrying a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head and was produced before the TADA court in Jammu within the stipulated time as per law,” a CBI spokesperson said.
Yasin Malik, who is serving a life sentence in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in a terror funding case, is not being produced physically in court due to a Ministry of Home Affairs order restricting his movement.
He was, however, identified by Rubaiya Sayeed as her key abductor in 1989. – IANS
