Jammu, Aug 18: A special NIA court has framed charges under UAPA against former president of the Kashmir wing of the High Court Bar Association (HCBA), Mian Abdul Qayoom, in connection with the assassination of advocate Babar Qadri in September 2020.
Qayoom, 77, an executive member of separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference, was arrested on June 25, 2024, as the principal conspirator behind Qadri’s killing, allegedly by terrorists of the proscribed ‘The Resistance Front’ (TRF), a proxy of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Earlier, Qayoom’s habeas corpus petition and his challenge to the arrest and remand process in the case were dismissed by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in February, reaffirming the legal propriety of the arrest and investigation.
He was taken into custody by the State Investigation Agency (SIA) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, which took over the case in July 2023, after collecting evidence against him.
“In a significant development in the high-profile murder case of Qadri, the special designated court under the NIA Act has formally framed charges under Sections 16, 18, and 38 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against Qayoom,” an official said.
He said the charges pertain to terrorism and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.
Qayoom is the father-in-law of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court judge Justice Javed Iqbal Wani.
The Srinagar police first filed a charge sheet in the case against six accused in the Special UAPA Court, Srinagar, in 2021.
In August 2022, the police conducted searches at Qayoom’s residences and those of two other lawyers in Srinagar, seizing various digital devices, bank statements and documents, as part of the ongoing probe.
In September 2023, the SIA announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for any information leading to solving Qadri’s murder.
The police had alleged the involvement of Saqib Manzoor, a LeT commander, in Qadri’s killing. Manzoor was killed during a police encounter in Srinagar alongside another militant commander in 2022.
Qadri, a human rights expert who frequently appeared on television debates, was fatally shot at his residence in the Hawal area of downtown on September 24, 2020. He had narrowly survived an assassination attempt in 2018.
Qadri was a founder of a dissident group known as the ‘Kashmir Lawyers Club’. He was actively critical of Qayoom — particularly accusing him of using the Kashmir Bar Association to further a secessionist agenda.
Earlier in December last year, the SIA filed a 340-page supplementary chargesheet against Qayoom in the special NIA court here for offences under various sections of the IPC and UAPA — including murder.
The initial chargesheet in the case had been filed before the Special NIA Court, Srinagar. However, in December 2023, the High Court had transferred the trial to Jammu, taking a serious view of the “interference in the judicial process” by Qayoom as well as “intimidation” of the family of the deceased.
According to the SIA chargesheet, Qayoom has a history of being a terrorist sympathiser and diehard secessionist.
Several cases already stand registered against him for his anti-national activities and he had earned notoriety for treating JKHCBA, Kashmir as his fiefdom and virtually converting it into a constituent of All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), the SIA chargesheet read.
During the major unrests, post 2008 in Kashmir, he was at the forefront of anti-India demonstrations and his calls for shutdowns coincided with the hartal calendars issued by Hurriyat, it said.
The SIA said he was very close to hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, whom he regarded as his political ‘guru’.
He had also declared in open court during High Court proceedings that he neither considered himself a citizen of India nor believed in the Indian Constitution, the SIA chargesheet had said.
