One of the arrested militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba caught by villagers in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district on Sunday was a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, reported The Indian Express.
Yesterday, police said two local militants were caught by villagers in Tuksan Dhok village of Reasi and handed over to the police. They were identified as Talib Hussain Shah, a resident of Draj village in Rajouri, and Faizal Ahmed Dar from Pulwama.
Soon after they were caught, it came to light that the Rajouri militant was the head of the Information Technology and Social Media Cell of BJP’s Minority Morcha in Jammu province.
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Shah was appointed to the post on May 9, according to an order issued by BJP’s Minority Morcha Jammu and Kashmir unit, reported NDTV.
Moreover, he has several pictures with senior BJP leaders, including Jammu and Kashmir party Chief Ravindra Raina, as per NDTV.
However, Sheikh Bashir who is the president of BJP Minority Morcha Jammu and Kashmir unit, told The Indian Express that Shah never attended the organisation’s meetings.
“He quit the role as well as the organisation on May 27 this year,” the minority president said.
BJP Party chief Ravinder Raina said that Shah was “never even a primary member” of the BJP.
While commenting on his photos with the militant, Raina claimed that Shah’s Facebook page is a part of the defamation tactic against the BJP party.
“It is a tactic by terror groups to show themselves as party workers so as to have access to party leaders and attack them at the first opportunity,” Raina said.
Meanwhile, the additional Director General of Police (Jammu) Mukesh Singh told NDTV that Shah was on the force’s radar for one and a half months.
“We suspected his involvement in a sticky bomb attack at Kotranka and also the killing of a civilian,” Singh said.
“He had used the same weapon for the killing which was recovered from him on Sunday when resident caught him with another militant,” he added.
The director-general of Police Dilbagh Singh and Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Sunday announced a cash reward of Rs 2 and Rs 5 lakh to residents for capturing Shah and Dar.
The incident came two days after India Today revealed pictures showing Mohammed Riyaz Attari, one of the Udaipur killers with BJP leaders in Rajasthan.
