Srinagar
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has sought an “integrity report” on former PDP legislator Aijaz Ahmad Mir, saying that “it is believed that he has soft corner towards the separatists”, in its letter to the Jammu and Kashmir Police, The Indian Express reported.
According to a letter by NIA; “It is believed that he (former legislator Mir) has soft corner towards the separatists. It has also come into notice that once his vehicle was used on the attacks on pilgrims of the Amarnath yatra,” NIA wrote in its letter J-K’s Additional Director General of Police. “Therefore, you are requested to provide criminal record/antecedents if any and integrity report on respect of aforesaid Ex-MLA namely Ajaz Ahmad Mir to Rakesh Shrama SP/CIO of the instant case.”
On September 28 last year, a Special Police Officer (SPO) Adil Bashir Sheikh, posted with the then PDP legislator Mir, escaped with seven rifles and a pistol from the legislator’s official residence at Jawahar Nagar in Srinagar. Mir was not in Kashmir when the incident happened, the report mentioned.
SPO Sheikh, who hailed from legislator Mir’s home town Wachi in south Kashmir’s Shopian, later joined militant ranks and posed in a picture with militants holding AK-47 rifles.
The report added that soon after the incident, J-K Police registered a case under FIR NO 57/2018 and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the weapons’ theft. The case was later handed over to the NIA.
Commenting on this, Mir, who represented Wachi constituency of Shopian said that he is ready for the probe or any other case, “I am ready for any investigation,” he said. “If they have to probe this case or any other case, I am ready,” Mir was quoted as having said.
Earlier, the former chief minister and a PDP president in an interview with the newspaper said Mir was being coerced to leave the party. “A senior BJP leader would travel to Srinagar every fortnight and summon our MLAs and MLCs. They told our Wachi MLA Aijaz Ahmad Mir that he has only two options: either leave PDP, join them and be part of the government or go to jail for two years. This happened soon after one of his police guards stole rifles and joined militants. What was his fault? He was cooperating with the J&K’s Police investigation. Same happened to Yasir Reshi, our MLC. They used the NIA to intimidate him and his family,” The Indian Express reported.
