Cop-out: Kashmir Police Bureaucracy Drags Feet on Its Own Request to Extradite Alleged Jihad Activist

Four months after police in Kashmir initiated a request for the extradition of an alleged United Arab Emirates-based jihad propagandist who has issued multiple online calls for violence against both officials and civilians, paperwork necessary to secure his return to face trial in India has not been processed at the Union Territory’s Police Headquarters, documents obtained by News18 have revealed. Kashmir’s inspector general of police Vijay Kumar had, documents obtained by News18 show, written to the headquarters on September 9, 2020, seeking the extradition of one-time Pampore resident Asif Maqbool Dar, who runs multiple social media platforms popular among secessionist audiences. “I am racist against every Indian.” Kashmir Police sources told News18 that Dar, who earlier worked as a doctor in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, had moved in recent weeks to Ras al-Khaimah in the UAE. “The real concern with delays like the one we’ve seen in the Dar case,” the intelligence official said, “is that it allows perpetrators time to escape to countries from where we cannot seek their return.” Intelligence sources said Pakistan’s spy services worked systematically from 2008 to amplify secessionist voices, setting up hundreds of thousands of mutually reinforcing fake handles on Facebook and Twitter—a common strategy of modern political propagandists.