A Consequential Kidnapping
Ved Marwah
Mufti Sayeed with Rubaiya after her release. Photo Courtesy: Sunday
On 8 December 1989, JKLF activists kidnapped Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya Sayeed, a medical student, while she was returning home in Srinagar. The Home Minister’s daughter had no security attached to her, and till the kidnappers rang up a local newspaper’s office about their demands for her release no one, not even her family members, knew anything about the kidnapping. Such an incident had not taken place earlier in the state and everyone was taken by surprised
This kidnapping, and the way it was handled, became a watershed in the history of terrorism and secessionist movement in the state. I was an eyewitness to the events, first in New Delhi and later in Srinagar. I was, at that time, posted as the Director-General of the National Security Guards. I received a call around dinner time asking me to immediately reach the Home Minister’s house at Akba