In a mega crackdown on terror, JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front) terrorist Bitta Karate’s wife and Hizbul Mujahideen’s Syed Salahuddin’s son have been sacked by the Jammu & Kashmir administration. The administration under the direction of LG Manoj Sinha sacked four government employees on Saturday, including Assabah Arjumand Khan– wife of Bitta Karate who is facing terror charges and is an accused in the Kashmiri pandit exodus of the 1990s. The other two include an assistant professor who was a former LET terrorist and a scientist of a Kashmir University.
All four have been dismissed from services under Article 311 of the Constitution of India for their involvement in anti-national activities, the government said. The law provides for dismissal of a person employed in civil capacities under Union or a State.
Charges against Bitta Karate’s wife & others
According to an official release, activities of these employees had come to the adverse notice of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as they have been found involved in activities prejudicial to the interests of the security of the State. A Committee, constituted on July 30, 2020 for scrutinizing the inputs, records, and cognizable material recommended the dismissal of the 4 namely–
- 1.Dr. Muheet Ahmad Bhat, Scientist-D in Post-Graduate Department of Computer Science, University of Kashmir: Found involved in propagating secessionist-terrorist agenda in University of Kashmir by radicalizing the students for advancing the programme and agenda of Pakistan and its proxies.
- 2. Majid Hussain Qadri, Senior Assistant Professor, Department of Management Studies, University of Kashmir with a long association with terror organizations including LeT. He had been earlier booked under Public Safety Act and is figuring in a number of FIRs registered u/s 302, 307, and 427, 7/27 RPC relating to various terror related cases.
- 3. Syed Abdul Mueed, Manager, IT, JKEDI: Found having role in three terror attacks on JKEDI complex at Sempora in Pampore, and his presence in the Institution has increased sympathy with the secessionist forces.
- 4. Assabah-ul-Arjamand Khan, JKAS, DPO, Publicity, Directorate of Rural Development, Kashmir: Found involved in providing false information for seeking a passport. She has been found having links with foreign people who have been indexed by the Indian security and intelligence to be on the payrolls of the ISI. Her involvement in ferrying consignment of money for funding anti-India activities in Jammu and Kashmir has also been reported.
It is important to mention that Bitta Karate’s wife, Assabah Khan, had once expressed how it was an ‘honour’ for her to marry the terrorist, who has publically admitted to killing several Kashmiri Pandits. In an interview in 1991, Karate stated that he executed more than ’20 Kashmiri Pandits’ or ‘maybe more than 30-40’. He had also admitted that Kashmiri Pandit Satish Tickoo was the first person he killed.
Assabah Khan, who holds a MA degree in mass communication and journalism from the University of Kashmir in 1999, worked as an editor at the Agriculture University of Science and Technology till 2007. In 2009, she passed the Kashmir Administrative Services (KAS) examination and subsequently was posted in the general administrative department. She married the terrorist in 2011.
Notably, the trial proceedings against Karate began after a long wait of 31 years in March 2022 on a plea filed by the family of Satish Tickoo. Advocate Utsav Bains filed the criminal application on behalf of the family against Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, who is presently in jail in the Srinagar session court.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had re-arrested Bitta Karate in 2019 on charges of terror funding. The agency charged Karate, Syed Salahuddin, and others of “conspiring to wage war against the government” and fomenting trouble in the Kashmir Valley in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack.
