The National Investigation Agency shifts the investigation spotlight from tainted Jammu and Kashmir police officer Davinder Singh to a lawyer Irfan Shafi Mir. Mir was arrested along with Singh and two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists on January 11. Post interrogation the NIA has revealed that DSP Davinder Singh was a mere “mercenary”, the key man behind the operation was one lawyer Irfan Shafi Mir.
According to an India Today report, NIA revealed that Irfan Shafi Mir, a resident of Diaroo in Shopian, was the common link between Davinder Singh and dreaded Hizbul leader Naveed Babu. Mir had reportedly arranged for the militants to be transported to Jammu and subsequently to be exfiltrated to PoK.
However, Davinder Singh, who was paid a huge sum for conducting the high-risk assignment, reportedly told NIA that he wanted to extract money from the module and later would have earned brownie points with Jammu and Kashmir Police after tipping them off and getting them eliminated.
Irfan’s phone book also gave away contacts of two-dozen numbers of various terrorists and over-ground-workers. Some of them are said to be ‘most wanted’ in NIA cases. Also, his social media profile shows that he was following an array of journalists, Bollywood actors and the official account of the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
Agencies divulged that Irfan was the one who travelled to Pakistan at least five times. His passport showed that he had travelled via the legal route during which time he visited the Hizb office and met the top leadership of the terrorist organisation.
Mir, whose father was once a police constable with J&K Police, was arrested back in 2019 but was reportedly let off. Mir’s father had reportedly joined the terror network Hizbul Mujahideen back in 1990s and was close to the current Hizbul chief Syed Salahuddin. He was later on killed by the security forces.
Officer Davinder Singh was arrested on January 11 in Kulgam while ferrying Naveed, Asif, and lawyer Irfan Mir to Jammu in his car. A team led by DIG Atul Goel had flagged the car (Hyundai i10) based on intelligence inputs. Sources said agencies learned about Naveed’s movement through Irfan’s phone, which had been put on surveillance. “Conversations revealed Naveed’s plan to leave for Jammu in an i10 car on January 11. Davinder was a chance arrest, albeit not shocking,” officers investigating the case had revealed.
He was involved in multiple operations of trapping and killing militants or forcing their arrest or surrender. Due to his successful anti-terror operations in the Special Operations Group, he had got an out-of-turn promotion as DSP and later was awarded a President’s Police Medal.
But his stint in Jammu and Kashmir was not clean. Singh was removed from SOG after there were allegations of extortions against him, and he was suspended from services for some time.
Davinder Singh was currently posted at the Srinagar International Airport. Earlier he was in the anti-hijacking squad of J&K police and before that a part of the special operations group when the elite force was established. His case has been handed over to NIA.
