Masquerading as militants, BJP Panch among three held for extortion

SRINAGAR — The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Friday said that it has arrested three Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Panchs who impersonated themselves as militants to extort money from a fruit merchant on gunpoint while one of their associate is still on the run.

A police spokesman in a statement issued here said that a complaint was received by police from Mudasir Ahmad Shiekh of Hamdani Colony Nadihal in Bandipora district that during the intervening night of 3/4 April 2021, some unidentified persons barged into his in-law’s house at Nadihal along with weapons and asked them to drop the weapons in south Kashmir and also took away two of their mobile phones and threatened them not to disclose the incident to anyone.

He said that in this regard, FIR No. 20 U/S 450, 506 IPC, and 7/25 Arms Act was lodged at PS Panzalla, and an investigation was taken up.

The spokesman said that during the investigation on technical evidence, one Panch namely Mehraj-u-din Rather son of Haji Mohd Akbar Rather resident of Minipora Krankshoon Sopore (BJP) was called up for questioning and he confessed the commission of crime with three more persons namely Mohd Saleem Wani son of Gh Rasool Wani resident of Hardpora Achabal Anantnag (Sarpanch), Bashir Ahmad Lone son of Mohd Shahbhan Lone resident of Nadihal and Mohd Dilawar Khwaja son of Sonnaulla Khwaja resident of Dachinpora Ruhama.

The spokesperson said Mohd Saleem from Anantnag, who is a Sarpanch of BJP, is still at large.

He said that it transpired that Mehraj and Salim had planned to extort money from Lone Traders illegally. Mehraj had contacted Bashir, who further contacted Dilawar for obtaining some fake weapons for committing the crime.

“These have also been recovered during the investigation, and further efforts are underway to unearth more links,” the spokesman said.