The Daily Etalaat Srinagar: Police orchestrated murder of Dr Guru: Wajahat Habibullah

Police orchestrated murder of Dr Guru: Wajahat Habibullah
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feroz ahmad on 22 July, 2008 
 
Jammu, July 21: Wajahat Habibullah, a 1968 batch Indian Administrative Service
(IAS) officer and Chief Information Commissioner of India, has alleged that the
assassination of Dr Abdul Ahad Guru, a prominent cardiologist of Kashmir in 1993
was “orchestrated by Jammu Kashmir Police.”
In his latest book titled "My Kashmir Conflict and the Prospects of Enduring
Peace"  published by Washington-based US Institute of Peace Press, Habibullah
says: “In April 1993, the chief ideologue of the JKLF, Dr Abdul Ahad Guru was
kidnapped and brutally murdered by the  Hizbul Mujahideen militant
Zulqarnain.”
Guru, a leading Srinagar physician who had founded a medical college in
Srinagar, commanded wide respect. “He presented a reasonable form of
separatism. He was therefore an inconvenience to the police.”
“The Police made an arrangement with Zulqarnain, then in custody, who agreed
to kill Guru in exchange for his release. But to ensure that this collusion
remained secret, Zulqarnain was killed shortly thereafter and then Director
General of Police BS Bedi trumpeted his death as a triumph for the security
forces,” Habibullah writes on page 81-82. He adds: “But the truth was
somewhat different. Instead of killing Zulqarnain in an armed encounter, the
police stormed the home where, under the mistaken presumption that he was safe
after having fulfilled his end of the bargain, he was consorting with a lady
friend.”
The revelation by Habibullah, who has served as Divisional Commissioner in the
state in 1993 can be a source of embarrassment for the police establishment. The
official verdict of Dr Guru's killing was that he was killed by Hizbul
Mujahideen militant group during internecine war with JKLF.