Rubaiyya Sayeed kidnapping: Court frees Shangloo, rejects custody to CBI

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The CBI was left red-faced on Tuesday when a special court set free Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, a day after the agency arrested him in connection with the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed -- the daughter of the then home minister Mufi Mohammed Sayeed.

 

Shangloo was produced before the special TADA court, where the CBI sought his judicial custody, claiming he was wanted in the Sayeed kidnapping case.

 

The accused was represented by a team of lawyers, including advocates Anil Raina, Suhail Dar and Yogesh Bakshi, who contended that Shangloo was never wanted by the CBI and also produced the agency's chargesheet in which the investigating officer was of the view that no case was made out against him.

 

Raina and Dar told reporters after the hearing that Shangloo had been set free as all contentions of the CBI were found "not to be true".

 

A relieved Shangloo later told reporters that he was a businessman and a passport was issued to him in Srinagar in 2016.

 

"I was never involved in any case. I spent almost 10 years in Delhi and was a frequent traveller between Kashmir and Delhi in connection with my business," he said, adding that he was issued a passport in Srinagar in 2016 after a proper police verification.

 

Asked that the CBI had claimed that Shangloo was an absconding accused and carried a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh, the lawyers dubbed it as a "media trial" and said "we believe in the court room trials".

 

In his application before the designated court, Shangloo said that he has never indulged in any unlawful activity, nor is a member of any terrorist organisation, and has been "falsely implicated" in the case.

 

The court, after hearing both sides, refused to send Shangloo to judicial custody in connection with the kidnapping that occurred on December 8, 1989, and ended after five days with the release of five dreaded JKLF terrorists on directions of the then home minister.

 

Rejecting the CBI plea for his custody, the special court noted that there was no mention of him in the charge sheet filed by the agency in the case.

 

The CBI, along with Jammu and Kashmir Police, arrested Shangloo from his residence in the Nishat area of Srinagar in the 35-year-old case, claiming he was part of a conspiracy hatched by members of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and had been absconding.

 

JKLF chief Yasin Malik, who has been attending the court hearings through video-conferencing, has been identified by eyewitnesses, including Rubaiyya Sayeed.

 

Malik, who is serving a jail term in Delhi's Tihar Jail in a terror funding case, is not being produced physically in court due to a Ministry of Home Affairs order restricting his movement.