Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha (file photo)
| Photo Credit:
ANI
Lieutenant Governor administration on Tuesday dismissed three Jammu and Kashmir government employees, including a conspirator in the 2018 assassination of journalist Shujaat Bukhari, for alleged links to proscribed militant groups, officials said.
The terminations, approved by the office Lieutenant Governor, mark the first such action since Indian military forces launched “Operation Sindoor” against Pakistan following a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22.
Waseem Ahmad Khan, a junior assistant at the Government Medical College in Srinagar, was among those sacked. He was named by investigators in 2018 as a conspirator in the killing of Bukhari, a prominent Kashmiri journalist and editor of Rising Kashmir, who was shot dead along with two police guards outside his office in Srinagar on June 14, 2018. Khan was allegedly linked to the Pakistan-based group Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), officials said.
“He had also provided crucial logistical support to terrorists to carry out attacks against CRPF and J&K police deployed at Secretariat in Srinagar,” said the officials.
The other two dismissed employees include Malik Ishfaq Naseer, a police constable, and Ajaz Ahmad, a government school teacher. Both are currently in jail and accused of aiding militant operations in Jammu and Kashmir.
LeT ties
Naseer, recruited into the J&K Police in 2007, was found to have ties with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based militant group. According to officials, he used his police credentials to assist in arms and narcotics smuggling, coordinating GPS-guided drops from across the border and supplying militants in the region.
Ajaz Ahmad, appointed as a teacher in 2011, was arrested in November 2023 when police intercepted his vehicle in Poonch and found arms, ammunition, and HM propaganda. Investigators later alleged he had long served as a conduit for arms and narcotics smuggling, acting under the direction of an HM handler in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Citing national security, the administration invoked Article 311(2)(c) of the Indian Constitution — which allows dismissal without departmental inquiry in cases involving threats to the state.
The termination , however, has evoked sharp criticism from PDP leader and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. “In the days leading up to the sacred occasion of Eid three government employees have been terminated over alleged links to terrorism leaving their families in distress,” she wrote on X.
She said that since 2019 hundreds of employees have been summarily dismissed without even a trial solely based on unproven allegations of so called terror affiliations.
“While this iron fist approach may create a facade of normalcy genuine sustainable peace can’t be achieved by inflicting suffering on people. Unfortunately the elected government watches completely unmoved like a mute bystander”.
Published on June 4, 2025
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