Mobile phone recovery gives new twist to case

Mobile phone recovery gives new twist to case
PRADEEP DUTTA

JAMMU, December 8: The murder case of Outlook cartoonist, Irfan, took a new turn today with police recovering his mobile phone from a counter-insurgent working with the Army in the southern district of Anantnag.

The recovery has brought to the fore the alleged involvement of some of the Kashmiri counter-insurgents in car-jacking rackets. This is the second recovery made by the Anantnag Police. Only last month, police had seized Irfan's car during a routine checking that gave them a lead to the solution of the murder case.

Following information after interrogating the arrested murder accused in Delhi, a police party led by Inspector Mahesh conducted a raid at the house of one Nanna, a counter-insurgent working with the Army in Janglat Galli on Tuesday morning and recovered a mobile phone from him. The phone, police sources said, was given to him by Faheem, the main accused in the murder, who was working as a denter with a UP-based businessman at Anantnag.

It is from this phone that Irfan is saidto have made the last call to his wife before being murdered. While speaking to The Indian Express, Shiv Kumar Singh Chauhan, DySP Anantnag informed that the murder accused had gifted the phone to Nanna for helping them in disposing of their cars in Kashmir.

``As mobile phones are inoperational in Kashmir Valley owing to militancy, it was just a mere show piece for Nanna. We therefore got suspicious about the whole affair,'' Chauhan said.

Another senior police official informed they had reports that some counter-insurgents are involved in car-jacking racket but it is for the first time that they have been able to prove it.

Reports say the murder accused sold cars in Valley at throwaway prices to counter-insurgents, who after fake registration, used to sell it for good money.

The Delhi police party had recently recovered a skeleton, whose identity is yet to be ascertained. This was also recovered on the same highway from where they recovered the body of Irfan. Preliminary investigations revealthat the victim was travelling in a red-coloured Maruti before being done to death. The same car is said to be plying in the valley.