Pink Panther and the Burhan Wani hunt

Kashmiri separatist Yasin Malik, currently lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail, has disclosed in an affidavit to the Delhi High Court that security forces missed multiple opportunities to arrest Hizbul Mujahideen poster boy Burhan Wani.

- M Saleem Pandit

It reads like a classic case of inept policing best captured in the Pink Panther series featuring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, a hilariously incompetent detective who gets it right only by accident.

The revelation comes at a time when, on August 11, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sought the death penalty for Malik in a terror funding case.

According to Malik's affidavit, the security grid in Jammu and Kashmir noticed Burhan Wani sometime in 2011, after he left his family home at the age of 15. Wani rose to prominence by appearing on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, where he posted photographs of himself in battle gear, wielding an AK-47 and wrote emotional speeches. Malik said that Wani romanticised the Mujahid movement, drawing young Kashmiris confined to their homes by crackdowns, curfews, and school closures to his words and images.