When Abdul Bari Naik was arrested on March 7, the Jammu and Kashmir police claimed he had been evading arrest since 2018. A special team of...
When Abdul Bari Naik was arrested on March 7, the Jammu and Kashmir police claimed he had been evading arrest since 2018. A special team of Kulgam district police had acted on “reliable information” to arrest Naik from Udhampur in Jammu region, a police statement said.
But Naik, aged 40, is no ordinary fugitive.
Last year when the coronavirus pandemic was raging, he supervised one of the three quarantine centres in Kashmir’s Kulgam district – the government-run degree college where he was posted as an assistant professor. He is still listed as faculty on the institution’s website. A college official confirmed he worked there for six years from 2015 till January this year when he was transferred to the government college for women in Udhampur.
“He teaches geography,” said an official of the Udhampur college who, like the Kulgam official, requested anonymity since he is not authorised to speak to the press.
Naik’s father, Ghulam Mohiudin Naik, said his son had been regularly attending official duties. “If he was an absconder how could he be working as a government employee?” he asked. The family believes Naik has been arrested because of his public interest activism. They said he had exposed corruption in the government as well...
