Srinagar: Security agencies have found that a former Kashmiri journalist, Mukhtar Baba, is the mastermind behind the recent terror threats to local journalists. The revelations follow the probe launched close on the heels of resignations by five Kashmiri journalists. According to the security agencies, the hand of former journalist Mukhtar Baba was evident in collating the list of journalists and branding them as informers for the security forces and intelligence agencies both local and Central.
Mukhtar Baba, originally a resident of downtown Srinagar, shifted to its Nowgam outskirts before escaping to Turkey. He has built a network of informers from within journalists on the basis of whose inputs he has prepared the current threat list. "He remained affiliated with terror outfit Hizbullah in the 1990s and was shunted out from the outfit after he was found involved in selling Hizbullah's AK-47 rifles to another terror outfit."
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Thereafter, he remained associated with Masrat Alam led Muslim League and is notorious for his coercive means to compel journalists and media outlets in the Valley to toe Pakistani and terrorist line in reporting and opinions," says Mukhtar Baba's dossier prepared by the intelligence agencies. Sources stated that he has always been close to Pakistani agencies while being active in Srinagar with several secessionist outfits. Baba has also been active on social media making all out efforts to push the narrative at the behest of hostile foreign agencies.
Mukhtar Baba, 55, had worked as a journalist with four Valley based media organisations earlier and is very familiar with the media environment in Kashmir. He was lodged in Jammu's Kot Bhalwal Jail for quite some time in 1990. Sources said that Mukhtar Baba was placed in Turkey sometime in 2018 by Jodha Carin Fischer, an American national of German origin, who operated in Jammu and Kashmir as a deep penetration ISI agent for almost eight years before her cover was blown and she was forcibly deported.
Srinagar Police on November 12 said that a case has been registered against handlers, active terrorists and over ground workers (OGWs) of terror outfit LeT and its offshoot TRF for online publication and dissemination of a direct threat letter to journalists and reporters based in Kashmir. The FIR was filed under sections 13 of the UAPA, and sections 505, 153B, 124A and 506 of the IPC in Shergari Police Station.
Police sources said that intelligence assessment based on inputs from Central Intelligence Agencies suggests that Mukhtar Baba visits Pakistan frequently from Turkey. He is behind propagating false narrative, grooming youngsters in the Valley for terrorism under the banner of The Resistance Front (TRF), which is an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). (with Agency inputs)
