Srinagar, Aug 21: In a shocking development, the Jammu and Kashmir Bank has reportedly fired its Chief Manager Sajad Ahmad Bazaz, after investigations by the J&K criminal investigation department (CID) revealed that he had links to Pakistan's ISI and terror outfits.

 

 

 

 

In an order, the Managing Director of the bank stated that "after considering the facts and circumstances of the case contained in the report received from credible agencies that the activities of Sajad Ahmad Bazaz, posted at Internal Communication and Marketing Department are such as to warrant his dismissal from service under Rule/Provision 12.29 in OSM (Officers Service Manual)."

 

 

Reports suggest that Bazaz was an "embedded asset of the terrorist-separatist networks working on behalf of the ISI". It added that he was planted in J&K Bank in 1990 by the ISI through Fayaz Kaloo, owner and the editor of Greater Kashmir, a local daily newspaper.

 

According to sources cited by Daily Excelsior newspaper, the current bank management had no clue that Bazaz was one of the most important Pakistani assets, secretly working for ISI and terror outfits. The report added that following the abrogation of Article 370 of Indian Constitution in August 2019, the top investigators were probing link of deep ISI assets within the terror ecosystem when the name of Bazaz cropped up.

 

Sajad Ahmad Bazaz, originally a resident of Batamaloo Srinagar, was appointed as cashier-cum-clerk in 1990 and later promoted in 2004 as the head of internal communication at J&K Bank. Intelligence sources said the gazette officer-equivalent post of editor was specially created for him.

 

Bazaz while being a full-time employee of J&K Bank was also a full-timer with a Kashmir based newspaper as a correspondent-cum-columnist under a different name.

 

"This is open knowledge and known to all. Evidence collected by the agencies suggests that he did not have honest intentions as a parallel employee of the newspaper can be seen in the different names under which he wrote and published. Initially he used 'Sajjad Ahmad' as his penname. He cleverly added one additional ‘j’ and also dropped his surname ‘Bazaz’. Later with passage of time he got emboldened when neither his employer nor the law of the land could take cognizance of his wrongdoings, Sajad added his surname and wrote under byline ‘Sajjad Bazaz’," Daily Excelsior paper cited an official source as saying.