The 37-page charge sheet in a weapon-snatching case outlines the plan to revive terrorism in Kishtwar and carry out targeted killings

The Hizbul Mujahideen, a terror group based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, was working on a plot to target “a particular community” in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district and force its members to “run away from the area”, according to a National Investigation Agency (NIA) charge sheet filed in a weapon-snatching case.

The 37-page charge sheet outlined the Hizbul’s plan to revive terrorism in the erstwhile Doda district — it was later trifurcated to create Kishtwar, Ramban and Doda districts — and carry out targeted killings. The victims NIA cited in its charge sheet were Hindus.

“During the investigation, it has been found that the Hizbul-ul-Mujahideen (HM) terrorists conspired to strike terror in the minds of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in general and Kishtwar district in particular by carting out terror acts of targeting persons of a particular community and committing daylight looting of weapons,” the charge sheet read.

The original case dates back to March 3, 2019, when two Hizbul men barged into the rented resident of head constable Daleep Singh, the escort in charge of the then deputy commissioner of Kishtwar, and snatched his service rifle, an AK-47. The case was transferred to NIA in August 2019.

The agency said said the aim was to “revive militancy in Kishtwar district by way of targeting prominent persons of a particular community and by the looting of arms, thereby executing the larger conspiracy to create terror amongst the members of a particular community in order to force them to run away from the area”.

The charge sheet mentioned the killing of the Parihar brothers, who were associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It also mentioned the killing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Chander Kant Sharma and his personal security officer at the district hospital in Kishtwar.

The NIA charge sheet said all these killings were a part of the design of the Hizbul to instil fear.