Zarger was Most Wanted in Srinagar in early '90s

Zarger was Most Wanted in Srinagar in early '90s
TARIQ BHAT & NAZIR MASOODI

SRINAGAR, DEC 25: Mushtaq Ahmed Zarger, the man the hijackers reportedly want released in exchange for the lives of passengers on board IC 814, was the most wanted militant in Srinagar in the early years of militancy. Since 1992-end, he has been safely behind bars.

It is not entirely clear why the `Islamic Salvation Front' should want him released and there is no direct link between Zarger and the LeT, which emerged in Kashmir some years after he was jailed. But it is possible that he has been chosen simply because he is among the most high-profile Kashmiri militants now in Indian prisons.

Zarger, better known as Latrum, was an early recruit to militancy. He was part of one of the earliest batches of youth who crossed the Line of Control into Pakistan for arms training after the controversial 1987 assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

Now in his mid-thirties, Latrum was briefly associated with the pro-Independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in 1989. However, he is believed to have fallen out with the then JKLF's HAJI group due to his pro-Pakistan stance. In 1990, he floated his own militant outfit Al Umar Mujahideen.

The outfit headquartered in downtown Srinagar was one the most active and dreaded militant groups during early 90s. Al Umar enjoyed massive support among the loyalists of the Mirwaiz clan. Like Hizbul Mujahideen, which emerged as the armed wing of the Jamat-e-Islami Kashmir, the Al Umar mujahideen was more of an military arm of the Bakra community loyalists of the Mirwaiz clan.

Al Umar remained one of the front running militant groups in Kashmir since 1990 to 1994. The outfit had very little presence in other districts. Along with some JKLF and Hizbul mujhahideen commanders, he was on the most wanted list of security agencies in Kashmir. Zarger's dread multiplied after he blew Tehseen Bila, a militant of his own outfit, to smithereens by attaching a bomb to his body for acting as an police informer. He was responsible for some of dreaded attacks on the security forces in downtown here. The outfit was one of the best equipped and well financed militant groups in the Valley. After escaping from the security dragnet several times, Zarger was finally nabbed at dawn on May 15, 1992 from his hideout at Saraf Kadal here along three of his accomplices who have since been released after spending several years in jail.

Since then, he has been languishing in jail on several charges of murder. His outfit is especially held responsible for killing Peer Muhammad Sahfi, former MLA, Hisam-ud-din Bandy, a head priest of Daragah Hazratbal and Muhammad Sadiq Sheikh, relative of Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah. Soon after Zarger's arrest, the outfit slowly lost its impact. It lost some of its most senior men in a string of encounters which took the sting out of the group.