Former Kashmir Bar Council Chief Mian Qayoom Arrested on Murder Charges

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir police on Tuesday arrested Mian Abdul Qayoom, one of the most prominent and well-known lawyers and former president of the Kashmir Bar Council, for his alleged involvement in the murder conspiracy of a fellow lawyer Babar Qadri in 2020.

The police sources said that Mr. Qayoom who served as the president of the J&K High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA) for twenty terms between 1986 and 2019 was taken into custody after the State Investigation Agency (SIA) “collected substantial evidence against him.”

80-year-old Qayoom was incarcerated several times in the past including following the Centre stripped the erstwhile state of J&K of its special status and split it up into two Union Territories in August 2019. He was often accused of being involved in anti-India political activities and openly supporting the separatist cause.

He was known for his close association with Islamist and pro-Pakistan separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani who died at the age of 91 after a prolonged illness on September 1, 2021. Mr. Qayoom was shot at and critically wounded by two unidentified men at his Srinagar residence on April 22, 1995.

The police said that during the investigation, Mr. Qayoom emerged as the primary suspect behind the murder conspiracy of 35-year-old Qadri who shot to prominence mainly due to his frequently appearing in prime-time shows and debates on Kashmir on various TV channels. He was targeted by unknown gunmen at his home in Srinagar’s Hawal area on September 24, 2020. Sometime before his murder, Mr. Qadri had launched a political party called All JK People’s Justice Party and named himself as its president. Following this, the KHCBA suspended his membership for showing “indiscipline.”

Days before his murder, Mr. Qadri, who had been a vocal critic of the KHCBA leadership, particularly targeting Mr. Qayoom, had expressed concerns about his safety. In a Facebook video posted a few days before his killing, Mr. Qadri had accused Mr. Qayoom of stifling dissent and transforming the KHCBA into a mouthpiece for Mr. Geelani-led Hurriyat Conference faction.

On August 24, 2022, special teams of J&K police raided and conducted searches at the houses of Mr. Qayoom and two other senior lawyers Mian Muzaffar Ahmed and Manzoor Ahmed Dar to further investigation into Mr. Qadri’s murder. It had seized digital devices, bank statements, property sale agreements, “suspicious” books and other relevant material during the searches.

Following the murder of Mr. Qadri, a case under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 7 and 27 of the Arms Act were registered at the concerned Lal Bazaar police station and a probe initiated through a Special Investigation Team (SIT). Later five persons were charge-sheeted in this case whereas searches were conducted during further investigation in the case “wherein certain new evidence came up that have the potential to unravel the conspiracy part in this killing,” the police had said.

Earlier this year, the J&K high court transferred the case to a Jammu court from Srinagar, saying, “For a fair and impartial trial of a criminal case, it is imperative that the witnesses are in a position to depose in an atmosphere, which is free and not hostile.”

The high court order came on an application moved by the SIA, saying no lawyer from Srinagar was willing to render legal assistance in the case apparently because of the involvement of some influential lawyers based in the Kashmiri capital.

In July 2021, the J&K police had claimed busting a syndicate of “white-collar terrorists" that was intimidating and issuing threats to politicians, government functionaries, journalists and attorneys by mentioning their names in a blog site, which was immediately blocked, as being an anti-freedom movement to pave the way for their assassination. It was said that Mr. Qadri too had become a victim of this vicious campaign.

It had also said, “With the arrest of the kingpins and the discovery of a huge number of digital devices and the analysis of the data therein, it is expected that the ultimate plans behind the murder of journalist Shujaat Bukhari, advocate Babar Qadri and businessman Satpal Nischal would come to the fore." It had further said that the blog site kashmirfight.wordpress.com had “designed a modus operandi wherein the name of the victim was first published, he was profiled giving detailed justification as to how and why he is a legitimate target for the terrorists and subsequently his actual execution by the terrorists.".

The SIA had earlier announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for any information leading to the apprehension of Mr. Qadri’s killers even though the police had alleged the involvement of Saqib Manzoor, a Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, in the murder.

Manzoor was along with another militant commander killed in a gunfight with the police in Srinagar in 2022.