The ministry of home affairs has declared Aijaz Ahmad Ahanger, one of the chief recruiters of the Islamic State in Jammu and Kashmir, an “individual terrorist” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967.
Ahanger, alias Abu Usman Al-Kashmiri, is currently based in Afghanistan. He has been a wanted terrorist in Jammu and Kashmir for more than two decades.
“Ahanger has started planning terror-related strategies by building coordination channels between various terrorist organisations,” the home ministry said on January 4.
He was born in Nawakadal area of Srinagar in 1974. According to security agencies, Ahanger joined terror outfit Al-Jihad in 1990, when insurgency was at its peak in the Valley. In 1991, he went to Pakistan for arms training and returned in the same year.
While he was active in terror-related activities, security forces arrested him in the Nowshera area of Srinagar in 1993. He was lodged in Central Jail Srinagar for almost two years and was released in 1995.
During his time in jail, he got in touch with Abdul Gani Dar, alias Abdullah Ghazali, a resident of Beerwah in central Kashmir’s Budgam district. Ghazali was an active supporter of terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba and later formed the Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen.
Active handler
“Ghazali got his daughter Rukhsana married to Ahanger after he was released from jail. Soon after the wedding, both fled to Pakistan and settled there. They had two children,” an official said.
In Pakistan, he again became an active handler of various terrorist organisations and started carrying out terror activities in the Valley. His father-in-law Ghazali was his main contact in Kashmir for attacking security establishments and recruiting terrorists, security officials said.
In February 2020, Ghazali, then 80 years old, was found dead inside a mosque in Maiusma area of Srinagar. Police officials suspect Ghazali was murdered in retaliation for the killing of prominent cleric Maulvi Showkat Ahmad Shah in an explosion in 2011.
The ministry said with Ahanger’s inclusion in the Fourth Schedule under the UAPA, he will be among 49 individuals designated as terrorists.
Ahanger, who has contacts with al-Qaeda and other global terrorist groups, was also appointed as head of the Islamic State recruitment cell and is engaged in restarting the Islamic State for India. He had been instrumental in initiating an online India-centric ISIS propaganda magazine, the ministry said.
In 2020, his name popped up on the radar of Afghan intelligence agencies investigating the Kabul Gurdwara attack on March 25, 2020, in which 25 Sikh devotees were killed. Security agencies said Ahanger shifted his base to Afghanistan in 2019 from Pakistan’s Wazirstan region.
Ahanger’s son Abdullah Aijaz was part of the Taliban network and was killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan in 2016.
“Ahanger is working towards providing traction to militancy in Kashmir and has started the process of identifying people for inclusion in his Kashmir-based network,” the ministry added.
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