Lucknow, July 11: Sandeep Sharma, the Hindu Lashkar-e-Toiba operative arrested in Kashmir, joined the militants not because of religious indoctrination or political beliefs but out of greed for money, his family and Uttar Pradesh police sources suggested today.
Sandeep, 30, of Mustafabad village in Muzaffarnagar had a day job as a welder in Kashmir's Anantnag town and allegedly moonlighted as a militant. His family portrayed him as a ne'er-do-well who hadn't contacted them for the past two years and a half.
"My younger brother dropped out after Class VIII but craved money and a rich man's life," Praveen Sharma, an auto-rickshaw driver in Haridwar, told reporters in Muzaffarnagar.
"He worked at a soft drinks plant here, then drove an auto-rickshaw for a year before getting trained as a welder at a local workshop."
Sandeep left for Delhi in 2012 after the death of their father Ram Kumar Sharma. "He informed us a few months later that he had got a welder's job with a power grid in Kashmir at a monthly salary of Rs 12,000," Praveen said.
About six months ago, the militants apparently hired Sandeep to help them rob ATMs because of his professional expertise. But Sandeep seems to have decided the money was too good and quickly graduated to joining attacks on the army and police, officers said.
He adopted the alias of Adil Ahmad but never converted and never roughed it in mountain hideouts, police sources in Kashmir said. They could not say how much the Lashkar paid him or what kind of lifestyle he had.
Mother Premwati, asked whether her younger son had ever helped the family financially, told reporters with folded hands: "Praveen's wife Rekha and I make ends meet by working as a cook and a housemaid."
She added: "Hang him (Sandeep) if he is a terrorist."
Kashmir police have said Sandeep was arrested on July 1 from an Anantnag house where Lashkar commander Bashir Lashkari had been killed in an encounter. But Praveen said he had received a call from a police officer in Anantnag in January saying Sandeep had been arrested for an ATM robbery.
Some Uttar Pradesh officers suggested a "new trend" of the militants luring "criminal" recruits with money, but Kashmir police believe that Sandeep's is a "one-off case" given there's no shortage of youths joining militancy for ideological reasons in the Valley.
However, Valley police are taking no chances and have decided to vet as many migrants to Kashmir as they can.
Brijlal, former additional director-general of police in Uttar Pradesh, described a previous instance of a young man from Madhubani in Bihar - a Muslim - allegedly taking up militancy to secure a snazzier lifestyle.
Sabauddin Ahmad was arrested in Lucknow in February 2008 over the December 2005 Lashkar attack on the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, that killed a visiting IIT Delhi professor. He is in jail in Karnataka, awaiting trial.
Sabauddin had left home when his father refused to give him Rs 30,000 to travel to the Gulf for a job. Abdul Aziz, a Nepal-based Lashkar commander, came in touch with him and offered to pay his way into a BBA programme at Presidency College, Bangalore, Brijlal said.
Sabauddin, who loved expensive goggles and clothes, was a student of the college when the attack took place. "He used to live in style and had many good friends in college," Brijlal had said then.
In 2010, Jammu and Kashmir police had acknowledged that a "dozen-odd Hindus" had joined the militants over the years. Some of them had been killed while one had surrendered, another had been arrested and several were still active.
They were all from Muslim-majority districts in Jammu, and a few of them had risen to become Grade A (the most dreaded) terrorists.#Some of them had joined for ideological reasons - several had converted to Islam - while some did it probably for fame, money or power, officers had suggested.
But Kishtwar's Subhash Kumar alias Wasif had apparently fallen in love with a Muslim girl and picked up the gun to impress her.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MUZAFFAR RAINA
