Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, alias Mushtaq Latram, has been designated as a terrorist under the stringent anti-terror law UAPA, a move which enables the security agencies to attach his or associates’ properties believed to be purchased from proceeds of crime.
With this, anyone staying in touch with him becomes an offender under the law.
He was one of the terrorists released in exchange for passengers of hijacked Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in 1999, besides Masood Azhar, the chief of banned terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Sheikh Omar.
Considered to be ruthless in the early 1990s, Zargar had split JKLF and formed his own Al-Umar Mujahideen terror group.
Zargar is the fourth individual to have been designated as a terrorist by the Centre in the last one week and the 35th individual to have been declared a designated terrorist by the government.