4 journos, 2 Govt employees in touch with Baba
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 17: After resignations by five Kashmiri journalists over the anonymous online threats to over a dozen of them, security agencies have found journalist Mukhtar Baba as the mastermind behind putting out the list of journos accusing them of being informers for security forces.
According to police, a First Information Report, under anti-terrorist law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) has been registered and investigations have been launched after the emergence of the list of over a dozen Kashmiri journalists who were accused of being “collaborators”.
An intelligence assessment based on inputs from Central Intelligence Agencies suggest that Baba, visits Pakistan frequently from Turkey and is behind propagating false narrative, grooming youngsters in the Valley for terrorism under the banner of The Resistance Front (TRF), which is an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
It said that Sajjad Gul who is originally from Srinagar is one of the main operatives of the TRF and is also involved in issuing threats. The agency has identified six persons who are in touch with Baba and are providing information to him.
The agencies have identified more than six persons including four journalists and two government employees on the basis of objective evidence. They have recommended a mission-based approach to expansively identify these elements, collect evidence by way of mapping their properties, their telecommunication usage, and their travel within the country and abroad to provide an effective response to the challenge.
Baba, originally a resident of Srinagar, shifted to Nowgam before escaping to Ankara, Turkey. He has built a network of informers from within journalists on the basis of whose inputs he has prepared the current hit list.
“He remained affiliated with terror outfit Hizbullah in the 1990s and was shunted out from the outfit after he was found involved in selling 40 AK series rifles belonging to Hizbullah to another terrorist organization,” a dossier about Baba read.
“Thereafter, he remained associated with Masrat Alam-led Muslim League and is notorious for his coercive means to compel journalists and media outlets in the Valley to toe Pakistani and terrorist line in reporting and opinions,” it read further.
Sources stated that he has always been close to Pakistani agencies while being active in Srinagar with several secessionist outfits. Baba has also been active on social media, making all out efforts to push the narrative at the behest hostile foreign agencies.
Baba, 55, had worked as a journalist with four Valley-based organisations earlier and is very familiar with the media environment in Kashmir. He was lodged in Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal Jail for quite some time in 1990.
As per reports, Baba was placed in Turkey sometime in 2018 by Jodha Carin Fischer, an American national of German origin who operated in Jammu and Kashmir as a deep penetration ISI agent for almost eight years before her cover was blown and she was forcibly deported out.
Srinagar Police on November 12 said that a case has been registered against handlers, active terrorists and Over Ground Workers of terror outfit LeT and its offshoot TRF for online publication and dissemination of a direct threat letter to journalists and reporters based in Kashmir. The FIR was filed under sections 13 of the UAPA, and sections 505, 153B, 124A and 506 of the IPC in Shergari Police Station.
Meanwhile, police today urged media houses not to discuss names of the journalists during their debate regarding online anonymous threat to them.
“It has been noticed by our social media cell that many news portals are irresponsibly discussing names of media persons in their debates regarding the online anonymous threat to them,” Srinagar police said in a statement.
“A case under relevant Sections has been already registered in Shergari police station about this threat,” police said.
“Media houses are requested not to fall for sensationalism in discussing names of victims in reporting and also to behave responsibly and not endanger the safety and security of their fellow journalists,” the police added.
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