The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) declared a Kashmir-born, Aijaz Ahmad Ahanger alias Abu Usman Al-Kashmiri, currently based in Afghanistan as an individual terrorist on Thursday.
According to the Home Ministry, Ahmad Ahanger was born in 1974 in Srinagar’s Nawakadal and is believed to have moved to Afghanistan. Wanted for more than two decades, MHA has accused him of building coordination channels between various ‘terrorists’ groups to restart and recruit militants for the Islamic State (IS) in India.
“Aijaz Ahmad Ahanger alias Abu Usman Al-Kashmiri, currently based in Afghanistan, one of the chief recruiters of Islamic State J&K (ISJK), has been designated as the individual terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967,” reads the notification issued by Union Home Ministry.
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“Ahanger, who was born in Srinagar in 1974, is a wanted terrorist in Jammu and Kashmir for more than two decades and has started planning terror-related strategies in Jammu and Kashmir by building coordination channels between various ‘terrorist groups. He has contacts with al-Qaeda and other global ‘terrorist’ groups and is engaged in restarting the Islamic State (IS) in India,” it said.
Ahanger is working towards providing traction to militancy in Kashmir and has started the process of identifying people for inclusion in his Kashmir-based network,” the MHA said.
“He was appointed as the head of Islamic State (IS) recruitment cell for India and had been instrumental in initiating an online India-centric ISIS propaganda magazine,” it reads.
“With his inclusion in the Fourth Schedule under the UAPA, 1967, Ahanger will be the 49 individual designated as a terrorist,” it added.
Notably, clause (a) of sub-section (1) and sub-section (2) of section 35 of the said Act empowers the Central Government to add the name of an individual in the Fourth Schedule to the UAPA act, if it believes that he is involved in terrorism.
It is pertinent to mention that Schedule 4 of the UAPA includes the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Masood Azhar, LeT chief Hafiz Sayeed, Dawood Ibrahim, Khalistani Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and Ashiq Ahmed Nengroo.
The last amendment in Schedule 4 was made by the notification on October 4 wherein the government added 10 more persons including the chiefs of banned Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen (TuM) and Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front (JKIF)
Banners of ISJK (Islamic State of Jammu and Kashmir) were seen in Srinagar’s Jamia mosque during the 2016 agitation, however, there was no evidence that the group was active in the valley or linked to ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
(KDC)
