Showkat Ahmad Shah

Srinagar, April 19: The army of mourners that sought action against the killers of Jamiat-e-Ahlihadees chief Showkat Ahmad Shah had some noteworthy foot soldiers: the cleric’s alleged assassins.

Jammu and Kashmir police have blamed jailed Muslim League chairperson Ashiq Hussain Fakhtoo, former Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen chief Abdul Gani Dar and former militants Javed Ahmad Munshi and Nissar Ahmad Khan for the murder.

The police said Fakhtoo and Dar hatched the conspiracy for Shah’s murder in the central jail while Munshi made the IED and Khan detonated it.

Shah was killed on April 8 outside Srinagar’s Gawkadal mosque, which is run by Jamiat-e-Ahlihadees, a puritanical Islamic sect that draws its inspiration from the Salafis of Saudi Arabia. Shah, though, was considered a moderate.

His death triggered a public uproar and led to demands in separatist circles for stern action against the killers, who are suspected to be separatists too.

Jamiat sources said both Dar and Munshi took part in processions that had followed Shah’s death and had demanded action against his killers, so they were not seen as suspects. Thousands had joined the funeral and there were demands for death to the killers.

“Munshi joined the funeral of Maulvi sahib at Lal Chowk and accompanied the mourners who took his body to his Lal Bazar residence. He was present at martyr’s graveyard (where Shah was buried) in the evening,” a source said.

“Like other mourners, he too was raising slogans against the killing.”

Dar, 70, the alleged conspirator, attended ceremonies for two consecutive days following Shah’s death. “He was present in the gathering that had assembled to mourn Shah’s death and expressed condolences to the bereaved family,” a close relative of Shah’s said.

Police said Dar is a leader of Sout-ul-Haq, a breakaway faction of Jamiat, though Sout-ul-Haq has denied any links with him. Munshi is a former Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen leader and was arrested and released several times. He was arrested in Delhi in 1999 when he came from Pakistan via Nepal.

Sources said both Dar and Munshi have Ahlihadees background. Dar had risen to become the chief commander of Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen in the early 1990s.

“A Sout-ul-Haq delegation had visited our office some years back and they wanted that Jamiat should declare it an offshoot of it with a bigger political role. But Maulvi sahib (Shah) had turned down that offer,” a Jamiat leader said.

Of late, Shah had been concentrating more on education than politics and had approached the government with a proposal to set up a Transworld Muslim University for Science and Technology. A bill was even passed in the lower House with support from the ruling National Conference and Congress. But the Congress later opposed the bill in the upper House, citing the group’s radical background.

Fakhtoo and Khan, sources said, have no Ahlihadees background. But Fakhtoo is a convert to Ahlihadees ideology. He did his PhD in jail on Ibn Taymyyiah, a 14th century scholar who has immensely influenced Ahlihadees thought.

Fakhtoo has broken his silence for the first time since police blamed him for conspiring in Shah’s murder. He said he was ready to face execution in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk if the charges against him are proven.