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Zargar used to tie grenades to his victims...

Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, two of the three militants released in Kandahar, had led the militant movement in Jammu and Kashmir before they were arrested.

Thirty-three-year-old Zargar, better known as Mushtaq Latram, is the founder-chief of the now defunct Al Umar outfit. He was instrumental in boosting militancy in Kashmir before being arrested in 1993 from downtown Srinagar.

Known for his ruthlessness, Zargar used to tie grenades to his victims and explode them. One of the founders of the militant movement in Kashmir along with Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leaders Yasin Malik and Javed Mir, he parted ways to form his own group.

Zargar was involved in scores of killings, including that of two Border Security Force personnel, and kidnappings. He was lodged in Srinagar after his arrest, where he remained till he was flown to Delhi.

Azhar was a religious preacher at an Islamic institution in Karachi before he entered India illegally. A school dropout, he obtained a degree in Islamic studies and taught in Islamic institutions in Karachi. He speaks Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic and English, and had edited the Voice of Freedom Fighters, the official magazine of the Harkat-ul-Ansar. He was its general secretary.

A fiery orator, Azhar belongs to a rich farmer's family of Karachi. He was arrested in 1994 along with Sajjad Afghani at Khannabal in South Kashmir's Anantnag district. His release was demanded earlier by many outfits including Al Faran, the HUA offshoot that abducted six foreign nationals from Pahalgam in July 1995.

Azhar's family at that time had maintained he was a journalist and had nothing to do with militancy.

An ideologue and a fundraiser for the HUA, Azhar had travelled to some 12 countries before being arrested. He had entered India on a Portuguese passport.

The third militant, Ahmed Omar Syed Sheikh, who has also been released, was lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail. The Delhi police arrested him in October 1994.

A Pakistani-born British national, he had abducted four foreigners in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Later, he brought them to Ghaziabad. On a tip-off, the Uttar Pradesh police had attempted a raid on the hideout, but had to withdraw after Sheikh and his gang shot dead an inspector.

Finally, the Delhi police stepped in to release the hostages and arrest Sheikh.

UNI

ALSO SEE:
Mushtaq Zargar, the cruel killer
Hijackers demand Maulana Masood Azhar's release

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