Pak wanted Davinder Singh to find contact inside MEA: NIA chargesheet

Davinder Singh, the dismissed Jammu and Kashmir Police deputy superintendent of police (DSP), not only played a key role in providing safe passage to the terrorists and leaking information about the deployment of Indian security forces, but also hid Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) terrorists in the J&K police’s guest house a day before his arrest, according to the charge sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) last month.

The charge sheet, exclusively reviewed by HT, states that apart from the Hizbul Mujahideen, Singh, 59, was in touch with the Pakistani establishment through Shafkat Jatoi alias Hussain , an officer of Pakistan high commission in New Delhi through secure messaging platforms.

Revealing Singh’s closeness to the Pakistani official, NIA’s charge sheet says that Singh saved the mobile number of Shafkat Jatoi as “Bhai Pak” .

Shafkat was using Singh to gain some access to other arms of the government and tasked him (Singh) to find a contact in the ministry of external affairs (MEA), NIA adds.

Singh was arrested on January 11 this year when he was ferrying HM Commander Syed Naveed Mushtaq alias Naveed Babu, an advocate, Irfan Shafi Mir, and another terrorist, Rafi Ahmad Rather, from Shopian to Jammu -- in his car.

He had done this before, NIA adds, commenting that people like Singh have played a “crucial” role in making HM one of the region’s most active terror groups.

The charge sheet, filed on July 6 in a special court in Jammu, claims that Singh transported Naveed Babu with another HM militant in February 2019 from Shopian to Jammu and later back to Shopian in April same year.

“His ( Singh’s) level of commitment in the execution of conspiracy is established by way of the fact that he harboured the HM militants – Babu and Rather on January 10 (a day before they were arrested this year) in a guest house meant for stay of J&K police personnel -- by making forged entries in the records of the guest house,” the charge sheet says. The location of guest house is not mentioned in the charge sheet but Singh, Mir, Babu and Rather left Shopian for Jammu on January 11.

It adds that Naveed Babu once asked Mir to confirm from Singh as which social media and messaging platforms they should use to avoid surveillance by Indian agencies.

Mir, who enjoyed clout with the HM leadership and Pak’s spy agency ISI, was using the official position of Singh for collection of information about the deployment of security forces, and engaged in getting arms and ammunition for further supplying to the active militants in the valley, the NIA charge sheet says.

“The evidence on record reveals that Singh was in constant touch with Irfan Mir for providing all kind of support including supply of arms and ammunition for which he was receiving funds at different point of time,” it adds. For supplying arms, Singh used to receive money from Mir and another HM operative Syed Irfan Ahmad.

It was Mir who had introduced Singh to Naveed Babu and Pakistan high commission officials.

The NIA has stated that Mir became part of conspiracy to help Naveed Babu further the agenda of HM sometime in June-July 2018 in the valley.

During his four trips to Pakistan since 2016, Mir met HM chief Syed Salahuddin, the terror group’s operation head Khurshid Alam and several ISI officers according to the charge sheet.