Absconder in the 1989 Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case held in Srinagar: CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday (December 1, 2025) arrested Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, an alleged absconder wanted in the case of the kidnapping 35 years ago of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the late former Union Home Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, from Srinagar.

A CBI spokesperson said Mr. Shangloo would be produced before the TADA court in Jammu, “within stipulated time as per law”.

“The accused conspired with Yasin Malik (chairman of the J&K Liberation Front or JKLF) and others in committing a crime under various Sections of the Ranbir Penal Code, and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) Act during the year 1989,” the CBI said.

The absconder, the CBI said, was carrying a reward of ₹10 lakh on his head.

Dr. Sayeed was kidnapped on the evening of December 8 and held hostage till December 13, 1989. She was released in exchange for five known militants of the JKLF, including Hamid Sheikh, Altaf Ahmed Bhat, Noor Mohammadd Kalwal, Javed Ahmed Zarger, and Sher Khan.

The kidnapping case, which was put in a cold storage for almost three decades, was re-opened in January 2021 when a TADA court ordered framing of charges against Malik and nine others in the kidnapping in Jammu.

In 2022, Dr. Sayeed identified Malik, 58, and three others, as her abductors in the 1989 kidnapping case.

The court had then observed that there were “sufficient grounds for drawing prima facie presumption that the accused have committed offences under Sections 120-B read with Sections 368 RPC and Section 3/4 of TADA Act”.

The CBI had also informed the court that several accused had made confessional statements and disclosed their role.

Besides the high-profile kidnapping case, the court in 2020 also framed charges against Malik and other accused in the case related to the killing of four Indian Air Force officials, including Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, in an attack in Srinagar on January 25, 1990.

In 2022, Mr. Malik was convicted by a special Delhi court in a terror financing case, and was awarded two life sentences and five punishments of 10 years rigorous imprisonment each. The National Investigation Agency had demanded the death penalty in the case. Mr. Malik, who was arrested in 2019 and his organisation banned by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, is pleading all the cases himself.