Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha on Tuesday removed three government employees from service for their alleged links with proscribed terrorist organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. According to a senior security official, the dismissed personnel were “active terror collaborators” involved in logistics, arms smuggling, and aiding terror operations against security forces and civilians, as reported by PTI.
The sacked employees were identified as Malik Ishfaq Naseer, a police constable, Ajaz Ahmed, a teacher in the school education department and Waseem Ahmad Khan, a junior assistant in Government Medical College, Srinagar, who were terminated under Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution. The article allows dismissing the accused without an inquiry “in the interest of national security.”
Officials have attributed the suspension to the administration’s crackdown on terror infrastructure, identifying and targeting over ground workers and sympathizers working within government organisations.
Who are the accused?
Constable Malik Ishfaq Naseer was inducted into service in 2007. His brother was a trained LeT militant who was killed in 2018. Malik drew suspicion during an investigation into arms smuggling in 2021. The senior official told PTI that the accused was “not only identifying the safe location, sharing the coordinates with LeT handlers in Pakistan but he was also collecting and distributing arms and ammunition to terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir region enabling them to carry out terrorist attacks on security forces and civilians.”
Ajaz Ahmed, the other accused was first arrested during a routine check in November 2023 when he was allegedly caught carrying arms, ammunition and posters of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in his car. Ahmed, claimed to be a trusted terror associate of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in the Poonch region, joined the Education Department in 2011.
According to the officer, the third accused was allegedly associated with both LeT and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen for aiding the logistics that led to the assassination of journalist Shujaat Bukhari and his security personnel in June 2018. Waseem Ahmed Khan was arrested in August 2018 during investigations into a terror attack in Srinagar’s Batmaloo area.
According to reports, the hiring process and verification measures have now been tightened by the LG to reduce “internal sabotage risks.”
All three have been arrested and are in a jail in Jammu and Kashmir.
