Srinagar: One of Jammu and Kashmir’s longest pending terror cases has reached a major breakthrough with the arrest of the last absconding accused in the 1991 Jammu Railway Station bomb blast, more than three decades after the attack claimed three lives and injured 18 others.
The accused, Altaf Hussain Sheikh, a resident of Marhama in Bijbehara, Anantnag, was arrested following a renewed investigation by the Government Railway Police (GRP). Officials said he had been living in South Kashmir under an assumed identity while posing as a businessman to evade arrest for 35 years.
The blast occurred on April 2, 1991, when an explosive device detonated on Platform No. 1 of Jammu Railway Station. The attack killed two paramilitary personnel and one civilian, while leaving 18 people injured. During the original investigation, one accused was arrested, but Sheikh and two others managed to flee and were later declared proclaimed offenders by a special court.
Two years ago, the GRP reopened the case and launched a fresh manhunt. After extensive verification of identity documents, residential records and intelligence inputs, investigators traced Sheikh to Bijbehara and arrested him earlier this week. He has since been produced before a court, and proceedings have been initiated under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.
Officials described the arrest as the culmination of decades of investigative work, stating that it closes one of the Union Territory’s oldest unresolved terror cases. They added that the breakthrough reinforces the principle that justice may be delayed, but it is not denied.
The renewed focus on historical terrorism cases is part of a broader effort to revisit unresolved crimes from the early 1990s, including the killings of Kashmiri Pandit poet Sarwanand Koul Premi and nurse Sarla Bhat, whose cases have also seen fresh investigative developments.
Sorry, there was a YouTube error.
