Jammu and Kashmir police have not found any information to substantiate Union Territory BJP chief Ravinder Raina’s claim of being on the hit list of Talib Hussain Shah, blowing up the politician’s defence on the alleged militant’s association with his party.

The BJP had initially acknowledged that Hussain was a member of the party at least till May 28, only to later reject this. Pictures had emerged showing a man resembling Hussain in the company of Union home minister Amit Shah and Raina. What appeared to be a BJP letterhead had been circulating on social media purportedly showing a Talib Hussain taking over as head of the IT department of the BJP’s minority cell in Jammu and Kashmir.

Raina, in his defence, had claimed that Hussain had infiltrated the party circles as a journalist as part of a Pakistani conspiracy to target him and BJP offices.

Raina had called for an NIA probe to unravel the “conspiracy”. No such probe was conducted but the police’s own investigations now seem to have put Raina in an embarrassing position.

Over a fortnight after “Lashkar commander” Hussain’s July 3 arrest, the police said on Monday that he had admitted to a role in five militant attacks in the region and received five drone consignments of arms and explosives from Pakistan.

The police also addressed the claims that Hussain had hobnobbed with BJP leaders with the ultimate aim of killing them.

Additional director-general of police of Jammu, Mukesh Singh, was asked on Monday during a media conference whether Hussain was tasked to target BJP leaders.

“So far there is no such information,” ADG Singh replied. Hussain has been questioned extensively over the past fortnight.

Singh was again specifically asked whether Raina was on the hit list of militants as he had purportedly received threats from insurgents in the past and drones carrying arms had been dropped in Rajouri, the politician’s home district.

“Talib Shah’s questioning has led to no such disclosure,” Singh replied.

The officer said Hussain was instrumental in all major militant activities in Jammu’s Pir Panchal region in the last three years.

On July 5, Raina had claimed that intelligence agencies had shared details with him that Hussain would send his videos to militant handlers across the LoC.

“The information that we received through security agencies is that Talib Shah would monitor my movements whenever I, as head of the J&K BJP, would visit mountainous areas and militancy-prone areas and share details with terrorist handlers in PoK,” Raina had said.

“Intelligence agencies had got these details through Talib Shah’s mobile. This is very worrying. It shows that terrorists have changed their strategy and are hatching novel conspiracies,” the BJP leader had added.

Raina had denied Hussain was associated with the BJP and claimed he had been planted as a journalist to establish links with political leaders through interviews.

BJP spokesman R.S. Pathania reiterated on Tuesday that Hussain had infiltrated the party to target the leadership. He said the party did not want to “cross-question intelligence inputs” but the police version had to be taken “with a pinch of salt”.

“You should have asked him (ADG Singh)… why a terrorist went to the BJP office, clicked selfies with the BJP president and other top leaders. He (Hussain) went to his (Raina’s) house, his office and to his public meetings. What was the motivation?” Pathania asked.

“He (Hussain) was up to something…this is but natural.”

Pathania said the police had revealed that Hussain had joined militant ranks three years ago and wondered why the law enforcers had failed to arrest him all these years.