Date:05/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/05/stories/2007120562070100.htm

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Top Hizb leader held

Praveen Swami

NEW DELHI: Nasir Ahmad Bhat, the head of the Hizb ul-Mujahideen’s operations in Jammu and Kashmir, has been arrested in a raid on a safe-house near Pulwama on Tuesday.

A resident of the village, Arwani, in the southern Kashmir district of Anantnag, Mr. Bhat is the senior-most Hizb ul-Mujahideen commander to have ever been taken alive.

Mr. Bhat’s arrest, police sources said, has retarded the feared group’s plans to sabotage state elections scheduled to be held next summer.

String of bombings

Operating under the direct command of the Hizb ul-Mujahideen’s Rawalpindi-based chief, Mohammad Yusuf Shah, Mr. Bhat had the overall responsibility of its operations within Jammu and Kashmir.

Over the past three years, he has believed to have directed a string of bombings and shootouts which claimed several hundred lives.

Mr. Bhat – who used the code-name ‘Ghazi Misbahuddin’ – had been despatched to rebuild the Hizb ul-Mujahideen after it lost a series of top commanders to Indian counter-terror operations in 2003-2004.

Disarray

The killing of veterans Abdul Rashid Pir, Ghulam Rasool Dar and Ghulam Hasan Khan left the organisation in disarray.

Police sources said Mr. Bhat had been finalising plans to unleash a wave of strikes on political workers.