Rubaiyya Sayeed kidnapping: Shangloo set free, CBI claims found ‘not true by court

Jammu: The CBI faced embarrassment on Tuesday when a special court released Shafat Ahmed Shangloo a day after his arrest in connection with the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed, the daughter of then home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.

Shangloo was produced before the special TADA court, where the CBI sought his judicial custody, claiming he was wanted in the Sayeed kidnapping case.

The accused was represented by a team of lawyers, including advocates Anil Raina, Suhail Dar, and Yogesh Bakshi. They contended that Shangloo was never wanted by the CBI and produced the agency's charge sheet, in which the investigating officer had stated that no case was made out against him.

Raina and Dar told reporters after the hearing that Shangloo had been set free as all contentions of the CBI were found "not to be true".

What did Shangloo say?

A relieved Shangloo told reporters that he was a businessman and that a passport had been issued to him in Srinagar in 2016. He said, "I was never involved in any case. I spent almost 10 years in Delhi and was a frequent traveller between Kashmir and Delhi in connection with my business."

He added that he was issued a passport in Srinagar in 2016 after a proper police verification.

When asked about the CBI's claim that he was an absconding accused with a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh, the lawyers described it as a "media trial" and said, "we believe in the court room trials".

In his application before the designated court, Shangloo stated that he had never indulged in any unlawful activity, nor was he a member of any terrorist organisation, and had been "falsely implicated" in the case.

Why did the court release Shangloo?

After hearing both sides, the court refused to send Shangloo to judicial custody in connection with the kidnapping that occurred on 8 December 1989, which ended after five days with the release of five JKLF terrorists on the directions of the then home minister.

Rejecting the CBI plea for his custody, the special court noted that there was no mention of him in the charge sheet filed by the agency in the case.

How did the arrest happen?

The CBI, along with Jammu and Kashmir Police, arrested Shangloo from his residence in the Nishat area of Srinagar in the 35-year-old case. The agency claimed he was part of a conspiracy hatched by members of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and had been absconding.

JKLF chief Yasin Malik, who has been attending the court hearings via video-conferencing, has been identified by eyewitnesses, including Rubaiyya Sayeed. Malik, who is serving a jail term 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.

PTI inputs