Narwal Twin Blasts: Police Officer Booked For Renting Out House To LeT Militant

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Police have registered an FIR against a police sub-inspector at whose house Mohammad Arif Sheikh, a serving government school teacher-turned-LeT militant, was allegedly living as a tenant. The house is located in Sunjawan’s Peerbagh Colony on the outskirts of Jammu city, reported The Indian Express.

Posted in Kashmir Valley, police sub-inspector Mohammad Haneef has been booked on charges of not verifying Arif Sheikh’s antecedents with the local police, newspaper The Indian Express quoted a senior police officer as having said, adding that the FIR against Haneef has been registered under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code.

The police had on Thursday said that they arrested Arif Sheikh, a school teacher posted in Government Middle School at Phagilla in Reasi district’s Mahore tehsil, for planting two IEDs in the Narwal area of Jammu city which injured nine people on January 21. A “perfume IED” seized from him – an explosive packed inside a perfume bottle, set up to explode when the nozzle is pressed or the lid turned – was the first such device seized by the J&K Police in three decades of militancy.

The provision under which PSI Haneef has been booked provides for punishment to a person who disobeys an order duly promulgated by a public servant, saying that if the disobedience causes or tends to cause danger to human life, health or safety, or causes or tends to cause a riot of affray, the offender shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine up to Rs 1,000 or both.

The police in Jammu and Kashmir have from time to time been asking people to submit information about tenants, if any, living in their houses for verification of their antecedents. In Jammu district, the police have conducted such verification for 25,000 tenants and their family members in the past one month, a senior police officer said.

Arif Sheikh owed allegiance to the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the report quoted the police as having said, adding that he has also confessed to his involvement in IED explosions in Jammu’s Shastri Nagar area in February 2022 and in a passenger bus near Katra on May 13 last year. While there was no casualty in the Shastri Nagar blast, four people were killed and over 20 injured in explosions inside a passenger bus near Katra.