No Expiry Date On Anti-Terror Fight: How SIA Kashmir Revived 13-Year-Old Cold Case From Sopore
No Expiry Date On Anti-Terror Fight: How SIA Kashmir Revived 13-Year-Old Cold Case From Sopore Reported By, Last Updated: July 12, 2026, 00:48 IST The
No Expiry Date On Anti-Terror Fight: How SIA Kashmir Revived 13-Year-Old Cold Case From Sopore Reported By, Last Updated: July 12, 2026, 00:48 IST The agency has secured an Interpol Red Corner Notice against active Hizbul Mujahideen commander Imtiyaz Ahmad Kandoo Owing to Kandoo's sustained involvement in orchestrating urban warfare, the Government of India officially designated him as an Individual Terrorist under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in October 2022. Images/News18 While traditional counter-terrorism operations rely heavily on immediate kinetic actions on the battlefield, the State Investigation Agency (SIA) Kashmir has delivered a masterclass in long-term institutional memory and legal endurance. By securing an Interpol Red Corner Notice against active Hizbul Mujahideen commander Imtiyaz Ahmad Kandoo, the agency has effectively demonstrated that India’s national security apparatus does not recognise an expiry date on justice. This major international breakthrough formally elevates the investigation of a cold case—the lethal April 2013 Peer Mohalla ambush in Sopore that claimed the lives of four Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel—into a highly coordinated global manhunt across 196 member nations. Top intelligence sources indicate that this development highlights a strategic shift in how India tackles cross-border fugitives who exploit international borders to escape domestic prosecution. Kandoo, a deeply entrenched operational asset who operates under the field aliases Fayaz and Sajad, is conclusively believed to have exfiltrated across the Line of Control into Pakistan soon after the 2013 strike.
By weaponising global policing networks, Indian investigators have systematically constructed an international legal blockade around him, crippling his remaining capacity to coordinate financial distribution, use international banking systems, or travel safely outside his immediate sanctuary. The Forensic Resurrection of the Hygam Conspiracy The case originates from a brutal assault executed on April 26, 2013, at Peer Mohalla in Hygam, Sopore, where a police detachment was ambushed by a terrorist squad armed with automatic weapons. Initially registered at Police Station Tarzoo in Sopore, the case languished for over a decade as a standard unresolved puzzle until it was officially transferred to the newly formed, specialized SIA Kashmir unit in 2024. Rather than treating the file as a legacy case, SIA investigators launched a fresh, highly comprehensive review, gathering new circumstantial data, conducting advanced forensic reconstructions of the conspiracy, and re-examining critical witnesses. This exhaustive investigative push allowed the SIA to successfully add more severe criminal offences based on fresh findings, culminating in a comprehensive chargesheet filed against six high-value accused individuals in July 2024. The judicial ledger reveals that while the wheels of justice turned slowly, they ground forward with absolute precision. Two key co-conspirators, Tariq Ahmad Mir and the notorious commander Qayoom Najar, were systematically eliminated in separate encounters with security forces over the years.
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