By News Agency of Kashmir,
Jammu : A 1968 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and presently Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah has made a chilling disclosure that the assassination of Dr Abdul Ahad Guru, a senior cardiologist of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1993 was orchestrated by ‘Jammu and Kashmir Police’.
In his latest book on page 81-82 titled “My Kashmir Conflict and The Prospects Of Enduring Peace” – published by Washington DC based United States Institute of Peace Press, Habibullah says, “In April 1993, the Chief ideologue of the JKLF, Dr.Abdul Ahad Guru was kidnapped and brutally murdered by the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant Zulqarnain”.
Guru, a leading Srinagar physician who had founded medical college, had commanded wide respect; he presented a reasonable form of separatism. He was therefore an inconvenience to the police.
“The Police made an arrangement with Zulqarnain, then in custody, who agreed to kill Guru in exchange for his release. But to ensure that this collusion remained secret, Zulqarnain was killed shortly thereafter and the Director General of Police BS Bedi trumpeted his death as a triumph for the security forces”.
The book further reveals, “But the truth was somewhat different. Instead of killing Zulqarnain in an armed encounter, the police stormed the home where, under the mistaken presumption that he was safe after having fulfilled his end of the bargain, he was consorting with a lady friend”.
The revelation by Habibullah, who has served as Divisional Commissioner in the state in 1993 can be a source of embarrassment for the police establishment. The official verdict of Dr Guru’s killing was that he was killed by Hizbul Mujahideen militant group as part of its internecine wars with JKLF as both militants groups tried to outdo the other in early 1990s.
Dr.Abdul Ahad Guru was one of the prominent faces of early 1990s when militancy started in the state in 1989. He was considered as an ideologue of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. It was on his initiative that JKLF had released kidnapped senior police personnel.