The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday said that it has taken over the probe against the arrested Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Superintendent of Police (Dy SP) Davinder Singh and three Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists.

An NIA spokesperson said that it has re-registered the case against Singh and the three terrorists, who were arrested along with arms and ammunition while travelling in a car.

The NIA registered the case after it received orders from the Union Home Ministry.

Earlier, a team of NIA officials, including an Inspector General rank official, reached Srinagar and collected all the information from police in Jammu and Srinagar.

Davinder Singh was arrested on January 11 with two top terrorists of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) while he was driving them in a car to probably make them escape to Jammu where they might have been planning a terror strike.

Among the militants arrested with him was a policeman turned terrorist commander, Naved Babu, who had last year deserted with four sophisticated AK 47 assault rifles and joined the HM. Naved had reportedly stayed in the house of the DSP in the neighbourhood of the Srinagar based headquarters of the strategic 15 Corps in the Badami Bagh Cantonment that is engaged in anti-terrorist operations in Kashmir.

He was allegedly taking Babu to Jammu to help him travel to Pakistan in connivance with Irfan, a lawyer.

As per police sources, a sum of Rs 12 lakh may have been given to Singh to move out the two Hizbul militants to Jammu on their way to Chandigarh and onward to Delhi to carry out attacks on or before the Republic Day.

Singh, who was posted in the anti-hijacking squad at the Srinagar international airport, was suspended from service on Monday. On Wednesday, the Jammu and Kashmir administration stripped him of the Sher-e-Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry.

The police had searched Davinder Singh’s residence in Srinagar on Tuesday, where he had allegedly sheltered the terrorists. Two pistols, a rifle and a large quantity of ammunition were seized from his residence.

The DSP has now been booked under the Unlawful Activities Act and was put under sustained interrogation by a joint team of officers of the Army, BSF, CRPF, ITBP, J&K Police, and central and state intelligence agencies. However, the Home Ministry has now entrusted his interrogation to the NIA that was already investigating terror-related cases in J-K.