The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has declared Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, the chief commander of terrorist outfit al Umar Mujahideen and one of the three terrorists released by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in exchange for hostages aboard the hijacked IC-814 flight in 1999, as a “terrorist” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Zargar (52), who hails from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, is the founder and chief commander of al Umar Mujahideen, which is already listed as a terrorist organisation under the UAPA.
The MHA notification designating Zargar as a terrorist said he had been affiliated with Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, the outfit headed by Yasin Malik, and had gone to Pakistan for obtaining illegal arms and ammunition training. It said that he had been running an incessant campaign from Pakistan to fuel terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
Zargar has been guilty also of different terror crimes including murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, planning and execution of terrorist attacks and terror funding, said the MHA.
The union government has described him as “a threat to peace, not only to India, but across the world, with his contacts and proximity to radical terrorist groups like the al Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed”.
The MHA has placed Zargar in the list of individual terrorists as entry no 35.
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