Srinagar, Dec 5, KDC: A Special TADA Court in Jammu has held that the arrest of Srinagar businessman Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, whom the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had described as a “35-year absconder” in the 1989 Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case, was based on a “mistaken” inclusion of his name on a general arrest warrant renewed in 2019.
The detailed order, issued by 3rd Additional Sessions Judge (TADA/POTA/UAPA) Madan Lal on December 2, accessed by Kashmir Dot Com, formally cancelled the warrant not only against Shangloo but also against seven other men. The court’s review established that none of these eight individuals were included in the original 1991 judicial direction for warrants.
A day prior to the ruling, the CBI had issued a public statement describing Shangloo as an absconder who had “conspired with Yasin Malik and others” in the kidnapping of Rubaiya, daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. The agency projected the arrest as a major step in the 35-year-old case; however, the court’s written order established that Shangloo’s standing in the judicial record was different from the agency’s projection.
The court’s analysis began with the charge sheet filed on September 18, 1990. In this document, the CBI segregated names into two groups: those to be prosecuted (including JKLF chief Yasin Malik) and those who were released for want of sufficient evidence. The judge recorded that Mr. Shangloo’s name appeared at serial number 10 in the latter category—persons investigated but against whom no material supported prosecution.
On September 17, 1991, the then TADA court directed that warrants be issued against five specific individuals who remained unapprehended.
The present ruling confirmed that these five names constituted the entire list authorized for warrants at that time. The judge noted that Shangloo was among those released for lack of evidence and was consciously not included in the group for whom warrants were directed.
The discrepancy arose nearly three decades later when, on August 10, 2019, the special court issued a set of general arrest warrants, purportedly “in compliance” with the 1991 order. The court now records that this 2019 warrant contained a longer list of names than the original five, including that of Shangloo.
The CBI and J&K Police executed this general warrant on December 1, 2025, leading to Shangloo’s arrest.
Upon reviewing the case record, TADA Court compared the 1990 charge sheet and the 1991 direction with the 2019 warrant. The order explicitly held that Shangloo’s inclusion was “inadvertently or mistakenly” done during the preparation of the general warrant, finding that the name “is not in the list of the accused against whom warrant has to be issued.”
The court’s finding establishes that, based on its own earlier directions, there was never a judicial order for a warrant against Shangloo in this case.
The order went beyond the individual case, noting that the 2019 general warrant also contained seven other names not present in the 1991 direction. The judge ruled that these individuals (Riaz Ahmed, Khurshid Ahmed Dar, Tariq Ahmed, Nisar Ahmed Bhat, Manzoor Ahmed, Nanaji, and Abdul Majid Bhat) were similarly not covered by the 1991 order.
To “avoid unnecessary exercise by CBI and hardship and stigma of arrest” to these individuals, the court cancelled the 2019 warrants against all eight names. This action serves as a procedural correction that resets the list of absconders to those originally identified by the TADA court in 1991.
The ruling does not affect the prosecution against the principal charge-sheeted accused, including Yasin Malik, with the recording of evidence scheduled to begin on December 6. The focus now shifts back to the ten charge-sheeted accused who face the ongoing trial. (KDC)
