The Jammu and Kashmir Police has approached the CBI for issuing a Red Corner Notice against Sajad Gul, who escaped to Pakistan in 2017 and allegedly hatched a conspiracy to kill journalist Shujaat Bukhari last year, officials said Tuesday. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the nodal agency for the Interpol in India and a request for the worldwide alert has to be routed through the agency.Papers from the J&K Police are being processed and will be sent soon to the Interpol’s headquarters after completion of necessary formalities, the officials said. Bukhari, 50, along with his two personal security officers was killed by unidentified gunmen on June 14 last year when he was stepping out of his office for breaking his fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Gul is believed to have started an online campaign against the journalist.Gul, a resident of Srinagar, had earlier been arrested by the Delhi Police in 2003 and he had served sentences also. Later, he resumed his education and completed a master’s in business administration from Jaipur before returning to Srinagar. He was arrested by the Kashmir police in 2016 for another militant related case and was subsequently released on bail. The Jammu and Kashmir Police had also sent a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to the US requesting preservation of data of Bukhari’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Police believed that threatening messages were sent to him on social networking sites from Pakistan. Facebook and Twitter are based out of the US and so is Google, which runs e-mail services. Both the US and India are signatories to an MLAT since 2005 which enables the two countries to pursue their common objective of law enforcement of putting in place a legal mechanism to enable them to provide to each other assistance in connection with investigation, prosecution, prevention of crime, including those relating to terrorism, narcotics, trafficking, economic and organised crime. The treaty shall include taking the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records and items of evidence; locating or identifying persons or items; serving documents etc.
