SRINAGAR, APRIL 11 Claiming to have uncovered a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant network, the J&K police have arrested three men who went to a madrasa in Surat in Gujarat and returned to the Valley after “indoctrination” to recruit cadres and establish bases.

With security forces cracking down on the JeM in the Valley — the outfit’s top commanders in the state have been killed — and Pakistan under pressure to rein in militants, police said that the JeM had been trying to promote “unknown” but “determined” Kashmiri men who graduated from a Darul Uloom in Surat.

In counter-insurgency operations in Sopore recently, police arrested three graduates of Surat’s Jamia Zakaria who had returned to the Valley to set up a JeM network in north Kashmir. The trio — Salahuddin Wani s/o Ghulam Mohideen Wani alias Abu Manhaj of Chinad village in Baramulla, Molvi Bashir Ahmad Mir s/o Ghulam Hassan Mir of Lalad, Sopore and Bilal Ahmad Bhat s/o Ghulam Rasool Bhat of Rangwar, Lalpora, Kupwara — had no police record though they were said to have been active for more than two years now. Police said that four other men from the same group surrendered in Kishtwar.

“The Jaish was in disarray after a majority of top commanders here were killed. Once police busted a cop-killer module in Srinagar, there were several leads that led us to these three men who had returned to the Valley after completing their madrasa education in Surat,” Sopore SP Mir Imtiyaz Hussain told The Indian Express. “They had been sent to the Sopore area to create a base but we arrested them”. Sources said that the Jaish network in the Valley comprised Muhajirs (foreign cadres) and Ansars (local recruits). But after pressure mounted in Pakistan and security forces here cracked down, the Muhajir numbers declined.

“Revival of the group was handed over to the Ansars,” Hussain said. “Salahuddin Wani had been active for two years. He even lost his left arm while assembling an IED in July last year. But nobody knew about his activities”. According to the SP, Molvi Bashir had opened a madrasa in Sopore’s Noorbagh locality to “camouflage” his militant activities. Hussain said the Jaish began recruiting madrasa graduates in 2003-4. “It began with Qari Maqsood. From Lolab, he too graduated from Surat. He was arrested but nobody knew about this group,” he said.