By Sheikh Qayoom

Srinagar, Jan 13 (IANS): The nexus between a decorated Jammu and Kashmir Police officer and the terrorists is likely to ruffle many a feather as the past of the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Devinder Singh is going to haunt the intelligence agencies for long.

He had joined the counter-insurgency Special Operations Group (SoG) of Jammu and Kashmir Police as a sub-inspector and he rose quickly to the rank of a DSP in addition to earning the prestigious police medal for gallantry ostensibly for his anti- militancy duties.

Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru had levelled a serious allegation against Devinder Singh during his defence in the trial court. Both the state police and the intelligence agencies had dismissed those allegations as a figment of a terrorist's mind.

Guru had alleged in his defence that Singh tortured him and threatened to kill his family unless he carried out his directions.

Guru alleged in a written affidavit and through statements carried in the local media that Singh had forced him to carry the Parliament attack terrorists to Delhi, hire a flat there and also buy a second hand white ambassador car for the use of the terrorists.

It was this white ambassador car that the terrorists used during the Parliament attack in 2001.

After his disgraceful arrest on Saturday, while he was carrying a dreaded terrorist Naveed Baba of Kashmir's Shopian district to Jammu in his private car, Singh has told interrogators that he had harboured the terrorist in his Srinagar residence before the travel.

Naveed Baba was wanted by the police for the murder of 11 civilians, who included non local labourers, truck drivers and fruit merchants, after the abrogation of Article 370.

Police told IANS that Devinder Singh had been harbouring terrorists in his home in Jammu and also in his ancestral home in Tral town of Kashmir's Pulwama district.

"For the heinous crime of carrying the terrorist to Jammu, he had taken Rs 12 lakh from the terrorist. He has been booked as a terrorist and he will be dealt as such," Vijay Kumar, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir zone told reporters on Sunday.

Given the high security sensitive nature of Devinder Singh's activities in mind, the National Investigative Agency (NIA) has decided that after being interrogated by the state police and the intelligence agencies, it will take custody of both Singh and Naveed to find out their links with the terror funding cases being investigated by it.

For how long has Devinder Singh been hunting with the hound and running with the deer? This is going to be the most embarrassing question for his seniors in the Jammu and Kashmir Police.