Jammu and Kashmir police’s twin counter-insurgency intelligence wings on Wednesday raided Srinagar’s Central Jail to investigate a security breach at the Union Territory’s biggest and most secure prison and the alleged links of some inmates with militant handlers across the LoC.

The police said the Counter Intelligence Kashmir (CIK) and the State Investigation Agency (SIA) conducted a joint raid on the Central Jail in connection with a “terror-linked case”.

The jail had been in the news for the wrong reasons on multiple occasions in the past but Wednesday’s raid suggested the government’s much-publicised hard line has not succeeded in curbing such activities at its most secure jail.

A police spokesman said the searches were conducted in pursuance of a warrant issued by the court of the special judge designated under the NIA Act.

The spokesman said the case pertained to a larger conspiracy hatched by militant organisations in Jammu and Kashmir and across the LoC to create “new terror modules” through misuse of social media applications.

“Youths of Kashmir are lured by varied ways and means including radicalisation/ instigation/ provocation, etc, with the intention to make the youths indulge in unlawful and terrorist activities and also to join terrorist ranks for furthering the activities of these terrorist organisations,” a statement said.

The spokesman said banned militant organisations were operating at the behest of Pakistani agencies and in connivance with overground workers, supporters, facilitators and sympathisers in Kashmir.

The spokesman said that during the investigation of the case, it emerged that mobile phones and other devices had been used in the Central Jail “for communicating with active terrorists and passing on directions so received from the handlers sitting across for furtherance of terrorist activities”.

“As such, the searches were conducted in different blocks/ barracks of the Central Jail at Srinagar wherein incriminating materials such as SIM cards, mobile phones and other digital devices having a bearing on the investigation of the case have
been recovered and seized,” he said.

The police said the investigating agency was also looking into “how these digital communication devices reached the jail premises”.

“Facilitators/ collaborators in this act will also become the subject of investigation,” the spokesman said.

The police said the operation was aimed at uncovering “crucial evidence” to curb illicit activities and prevent the misuse of communication devices inside security zones, including jails, and “dismantling the terror ecosystem in the UT”.

Security forces and intelligence agencies have ramped up their operations across Jammu and Kashmir after a spate of militant attacks.