Overview
- Those removed are Mohammad Ishfaq (teacher), Tariq Ahmad Rah (lab technician), Bashir Ahmad Mir (assistant lineman), Farooq Ahmad Bhat (forest field worker) and Mohammad Yousuf (health department driver).
- Security dossiers allege the group acted as overground workers for Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen by facilitating recruitment, logistics, funds and communications with Pakistan-based handlers.
- Investigators say Ishfaq was in contact with LeT commander Abu Khubaib and was arrested in April 2022 over an alleged plot to kill a police officer in Doda, while Rah was linked by an SIA probe to the 2005 exfiltration of Hizbul commander Amin Baba to Pakistan.
- Police records cite Mir’s house as the site of a 2021 encounter that killed two LeT militants, and report Yousuf’s July 20, 2024 interception with a pistol, ammunition, a grenade and ₹5 lakh said to be for HM operatives; officials also accuse Bhat of using his government ID and an MLA’s vehicle to aid Amin Baba’s escape.
- Officials say more than 80 government employees have been dismissed since 2020–2021 in a continuing purge, while opposition leaders and civil society figures criticize the process as arbitrary and lacking due process.