Devinder Singh is a former Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of Jammu and Kashmir, who was arrested along with “most wanted” terrorists in Kulgam town (Mir Bazar) of South Kashmir on 11 January 2020.
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Who is Devinder Singh?
Davinder Singh is a former Indian police officer who was posted as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in the anti-hijacking unit of Jammu and Kashmir Police at Srinagar Airport. On the afternoon of 11 January 2020, he was arrested in Mir Bazaar area of Kulgam Town in South Kashmir while traveling with two terrorists from Srinagar to New Delhi in a private vehicle. Davinder Singh was on the police radar for several weeks before his arrest. Devinder Singh comes from Tral, which is believed to be the home of famous Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who became a household name in Kashmir before he was killed in 2016. Singh’s family has gardens in Tral, and his parents live with his brother Naseeb Singh in Delhi. Singh has served as Inspector and Deputy Superintendent in Jammu and Kashmir Police for more than 25 years. After completing his graduation from Amar Singh College, Srinagar, he joined the police as a sub-inspector in 1990. Reportedly, Singh is married and his wife is a teacher. Singh has three children, his two daughters studied MBBS in Bangladesh, and his son studied at the premier Burnt Hall school in Kashmir. According to sources, he was popular as ‘Shanti Singh’ among his friends and close ones. He built a grand mansion in Indira Nagar, a secure area of Srinagar. The wall of the mansion was shared with the headquarters of 15 Corps.
House under construction of DSP Davinder Singh arrested with terrorists in Kashmir
Police recovered grenades and AK 47 rifles during a search at the residence of a relative of Singh in Srinagar, where he was staying for the last few years before his arrest.
no less than a terrorist
After Singh’s arrest, preliminary investigation revealed that he was working as a “conveyor” for terrorists. A police officer said,
The plan was that no one would stop or check the vehicle in which a DSP was travelling.
In a press conference held on 12 January 2020, Inspector General Vijay Kumar said that Singh’s involvement in multiple counter-terrorism operations was a heinous crime and he would be treated no less than a terrorist. Mr. Kumar said,
The situation in which he was caught yesterday taking a terrorist to Jammu in a vehicle is a heinous crime and we are treating him the same way we treat any terrorist.
The sequence of events that led to his arrest
According to a South Kashmir police officer, the vehicle (a Hyundai i10 car), in which the terrorists were traveling along with DSP Davinder Singh, was stopped based on a specific input. It was mentioned in the input that a top terrorist was traveling in the car. However, there was no mention of any police officer being with the terrorists in the car in the input. The police officer said,
“The security personnel did not expect the presence of any police officer with the militants.”
Police patrolling in Mir Bazar Kulgam, South Kashmir
Reportedly, South Kashmir Deputy Inspector General of Police Atul Goyal was personally monitoring the checkpoints and slapped Singh several times for accompanying the terrorists. According to another police officer, if they had crossed the Jawahar Tunnel it would have been difficult to arrest them.
militant
On the afternoon of 11 January 2020, when a private vehicle carrying four people was stopped at a police post on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in south Kashmir, DSP Davinder Singh was arrested along with two terrorists and a suspected driver. Both the terrorists were identified as Naveed Babu and Rafi Ahmed Rather, Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists, while the driver was identified as Irfan Shafi, a former lawyer from Dayaru in south Kashmir’s Shopian district. Syed Naveed Mushtaq alias Naveed Babu is a policeman turned terrorist. According to Inspector General of Police, Kashmir Vijay Kumar, Naved was a senior commander of Hizbul Mujahideen; Its operations chief is second only to Riyaz Naikoo. Kumar also said that Navid was a police constable in 2017 and had fled from Budgam with four rifles. Since then Naved’s name has cropped up in killings of civilians, policemen and truck drivers. IGP Kashmir, Vijay Kumar said,
In 2019, a lot of gardens were damaged and people were threatened by Navid Babu. Till date 17 FIRs have been registered against him. He was most wanted by us and was the district commander of Shopian.”
According to another police officer, Naveed Mushtaq comes from Nazneenpora village of Imam Sahib area of Shopian. The police officer said,
Naveed had 100 per cent role in at least five murders of non-local truck drivers and businessmen in Shopian.
According to sources, another Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist arrested was Rafi Ahmed Rather who hails from Batapora village of Imam Sahib. Irfan Shafi, the third person present in the car with Davinder Singh, was identified as an overground worker. Reportedly, Shafi drove the car while Singh was sitting next to him. According to officials, Shafi has been interrogated earlier also. A police officer, on condition of anonymity, said,
There were complaints against him that he had taken money from people to send their children to Pakistan for studies.
Reportedly, Shafi was also once caught in the Satwari area of Jammu, but his name did not figure on the terrorism radar until his arrest on January 11, 2020.
a decorated police officer
Devinder Singh had a strong record in counter-terrorism operations and was awarded the gallantry award in 2017. Reportedly, he was one of the 76 policemen from Jammu and Kashmir to be awarded the President’s Police Medal on India’s Independence Day in 2019. The Home Ministry later denied this claim. Singh was photographed with foreign diplomats who visited Kashmir in January 2020 as he was part of the official team responsible for welcoming them.
DSP Davinder Singh with foreign diplomats on Kashmir tour in January 2020
Participation in counter-insurgency operations
During his tenure in the police service, Devinder Singh earned praise for his participation in counter-terrorism operations which he planned and executed with the Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police. He was living near Army’s Badami Bagh cantonment in Indra Nagar area of Srinagar for years. Reportedly, he had voluntarily joined the anti-terrorism branch of the police in the 1990s.
a controversial career
Parallel to his decorated police career, Singh courted controversy throughout his career. The first such case occurred twenty years before his arrest when a group of five gunmen hijacked a truck from the Athwajan area of Srinagar. They looted his belongings, which belonged to a close relative of the then in-charge, acting Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah. Later, Shah told the then Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police that the kidnappers were counter-insurgents who had received AK-47 rifles from none other than Devinder Singh. However, no action was taken against Singh at that time. In another case, an FIR for ‘extortion’ was registered against Singh on the complaint of a businessman; However, the investigation was never taken to its logical conclusion. Davinder Singh’s name came into limelight again in 2001 during his tenure as Deputy Superintendent of the Special Operations Group in Budgam district of central Kashmir. He was transferred after massive public protests against custodial deaths. In 2015, Singh’s name surfaced in an FIR for allegedly extorting money from common people and implicating them in false police cases.
Afzal Guru Connection
Afzal Guru, lodged in Tihar Jail for his involvement in the Parliament attack, in a letter written to his lawyer Sushil Kumar in 2004, had said that DSP Davinder Singh, who was then posted in the Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Humhama had tortured her and asked her to take Mohammed, a Pakistani national who was later identified as one of the Parliament attackers, to Delhi, rent a flat for him to live in, and Was asked to buy a car. Referring to the atrocities committed against him, Afzal Guru wrote in the letter,
Then they took me to Humhama STF camp where DSP Davinder Singh also tortured me. One of their torture inspectors, Shanti Singh as they called him, kept me naked for 3 hours and made me drink water while giving electric shocks through telephone equipment. At last I accepted to give him the money. 1000000 for which my family sold my wife’s gold. Even after this they could manage only Rs. 80000. Then, they also took away the scooter which was just 2-3 months old which I had bought for Rs. 24000.” 
Afzal Guru tutored the children of Altaf Hussain, the brother-in-law of a senior police officer, who then took him to Devinder Singh. The Guru further wrote in his letter,
One day Altaf took me to Devinder Singh (DSP). DS told me that I have to do a small task for him which involves taking a man to Delhi as I know well about Delhi and managing a rented house for him. Since I did not know the man, I suspected that this man was not a Kashmiri as he did not speak Kashmiri, but I was helpless to follow what Dravinder told me. I took him to Delhi.”
Although after Afzal Guru was hanged in 2013, many political parties had demanded an investigation into the matter, but till now no action has been taken against Singh. At a press conference in January 2020, when Inspector General Vijay Kumar was asked about Devinder Singh’s alleged involvement in the Parliament attacks, he said,
There is nothing like this in our records nor do I know anything about it… We will question him on this.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn