 Muskan Thakur
Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 18: A special NIA court in Jammu has issued a non-bailable warrant against Mohammad Yaqoob alias Abu Sumana, a Pakistan-based terror handler linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) network, marking the second such action by the court in a month after it ordered a similar warrant against LeT founder Hafiz Saeed in connection with the Pahalgam carnage.
The warrant was issued after the accused was booked under Section 35 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). According to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Abu Sumana's role emerged during the probe into the recovery of a Chinese grenade and 15 live cartridges from Mohammad Naqeeb Bhat in Srinagar.
Investigators allege that Abu Sumana directed two arrested Pakistani terrorists, Abdullah Rajput alias Kamran Ahmed and Khubaib alias Usman Jatt, instructing them to carry out attacks in the Kashmir Valley targeting security forces and civilians. Noting that the accused remains absconding, the court allowed the NIA's plea and ordered the non-bailab e warrant.
The development comes weeks after the same special NIA court, on July 8, issued a non-bailable warrant against Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based LeT chief, in the ongoing investigation into the Pahalgam terror attack. That order followed a supplementary chargesheet filed against Saeed just two days earlier, naming him both in his personal capacity and as chief of LeT and its front organisation, The Resistance Front (TRF). Saeed, 76, has been charged under multiple provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, and the UAPA.
The NIA told the court that Saeed, a resident of Sargodha in Pakistan's Punjab province, has been deliberately evading arrest, prompting the agency to seek an open-dated non-bailable warrant to enable further legal action as the investigation progresses.
Saeed — designated a global terrorist by both India and the United States — is widely regarded as the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The Pahalgam attack, carried out on April 22 last year, killed 26 people, most of them tourists, in south Kashmir. |
