By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
Srinagar: On Wednesday, January 10, the Delhi Police and Gujarat ATS arrested a Kashmiri man, said to be in his 30s, over his alleged involvement in the 2000 Red Fort attack in New Delhi in which three people, including two Army jawans, were killed.
Bilal Kawa was arrested from the Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International airport. The police have said that he is suspected to be linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and a proclaimed offender in the case.
Reacting to the arrest and the claims, family members of Bilal Kawa held a protest demonstration in the press colony Srinagar on Friday, alleging that their son is being implicated in the false case and he was going for treatment when he was arrested in Delhi.
“He has been going to Delhi since last 17 years and he was never arrested and we don’t know why he has been arrested now,” family members of Bilal told media persons during the protest demonstration.
According to Bilal’s mother Fatima Begum, he was living a normal life and was engaged in leather business and claimed they yet to know what charges he is being framed. “He is innocent. He is being framed,” she added.
On Thursday, January 11th a Delhi court remanded Bilal Ahmad Kawa to 10 days’ police custody. According to a report in The Hindu, the investigating officer in the case while seeking his police remand has submitted that Bilal was the kingpin of the attack and accused him of receiving money from Pakistan and other countries through hawala operators and the same were used in the Red Fort attack and other terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Another report in The Tribune confirmed that the Jammu Kashmir Police had not received any notice declaring him a proclaimed offender and no case was registered against him in the local police station.
Hurriyat Conference (M) has condemned the arrest of Bilal and have claimed that he is being made a scapegoat ahead of 26 January and has sought unconditional release.
“He is an innocent trader and deals with leather and fur business and often travels to Delhi for his business purposes,” said Hurriyat (M) spokesperson.“It has been observed since long that the police often resort to harassment of Kashmiri businessmen, students, traders in various states of India which seems to be a well-planned conspiracy of the Government of India to label Kashmiris as suspects and then frame them in fake and false cases,” the spokesperson added.
The arrest of Bilal comes months after Gulzar Ahmed Wani, a Ph.D. scholar in AMU from north Kashmir’s Pattan Town was acquitted of terror charges after 16 years of incarceration in May 2017. Another Kashmiri, Rafiq Shah was acquitted in the 2005 Delhi serial blasts after 12 years of incarceration in February 2017.