NIA wants permanent base in 'terror hub' Jammu & Kashmir

With Jammu and Kashmir being the hub of terror activities, National Investigation Agency (NIA) has set up camp offices at four places in the state and wants to establish a permanent base there for more effective monitoring of cases that take place in the region. 

The NIA, which was set up after the 2008 Mumbai attacks specifically for probing terror cases, has given a proposal to the Home Ministry for setting up a permanent office in Jammu from where it can monitor terror related cases in entire north India, official sources said.

The agency feels that Jammu was the central point from where officials could be deputed to Kashmir and areas like Doda, Kishtawar, Udhampur in the state, the sources said. The proposed office will also be able to cover neighbouring Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, which witnessed a terror incident at Gurdaspur in the last week of July that left eight people including a Superintendent of Police dead, they said.

The agency, in the meantime, has opened four camp offices at Jammu, Udhampur, Anantnag and Srinagar in connection with its probe of LeT terrorist Mohammed Naved Yakub, who was nabbed by public and handed over to police after the August five terror strike on a BSF convoy in Udhampur. NIA officials are now a part of a joint probe team which questions militants who have been apprehended across the country.

Recently, a team of NIA officials questioned Sajjad Ahmed, a Lashker-e-Taiba militant who was nabbed by the army alive at the Line of Control in Rafiabad, 105 kilometres north of capital city of Srinagar, on August 29. These questionings help the NIA officials to be updated about the terror activities across the border in Pakistan, the sources said. NIA has over-riding powers to probe any case which involves a terrorist action or hijacking

According to the section 6 (i)(5) "...if the Central Government is of the opinion that a Scheduled Offence has been committed which is required to be investigated under this Act, it may, suo motu, direct the Agency to investigate the said offence."