ibn sultan
Jammu, December 2, 2025: Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, arrested in connection with the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed — the daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed — was produced before a special CBI/TADA court in Jammu on Tuesday. The court refused to grant his custody to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), though the detailed reasoning behind the order was not immediately available.
After the hearing, Shangloo said, “I had no involvement in the abduction. The court has given me justice today.” His counsel, Advocate Sohail Dar, stated that since the court had set him free, no further investigation should proceed against him. The detailed verdict by Madan Lal, Third Additional District and Sessions Judge (TADA Court), is awaited.
Shangloo had a cash reward of ₹10 lakh on his head for allegedly being part of a conspiracy led by members of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). He was accused of being a close aide of JKLF chief Yasin Malik, who is currently serving a sentence in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in a militancy -funding case.
According to the CBI, Shangloo conspired with Malik and others and played a role in JKLF’s organisational and financial activities. He was arrested on December 1 from his residence in the Nishat area of Srinagar in a joint operation by the CBI and Jammu and Kashmir Police.
Rubaiyya Sayeed was abducted on December 8, 1989, near Lal Ded Hospital in Srinagar and released five days later after the then VP Singh government freed five militants in exchange. She now lives in Tamil Nadu and is listed as a prosecution witness in the case. She had earlier identified Yasin Malik and four other accused as part of the group involved in her kidnapping.
Yasin Malik, 56, was arrested in 2019 in a 2017 terror-funding case and was sentenced last year. In the kidnapping case, the TADA court has already framed charges against Malik and nine others, while Shangloo was considered an absconder.
