Area was focus for probe into kidnapped Indian diplomat; TERROR ARRESTS FOCUS.

Byline: By Neil Elkes

THE Alum Rock area was the focus of a major kidnap investigation more than 20 years ago when Indian diplomat Ravindra Hareshwa Mhatre went missing.

The 48-year-old Deputy High Commissioner, based in the Indian consular office in Birmingham, was kidnapped by Kashmiri militants and murdered in 1984.

He had stepped out of a No 12 bus near his Bartley Green home, clutching a birthday cake for his daughter Asha, bundled into a car and held captive for two days in Alum Rock.

He was shot and his body was found two days later in a farm lane near Hinckley.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) claimed responsibility and demanded a ransom of pounds 1 million and the release of political prisoners in India, including its founder Maq-bool Bhat.

JKLF members Mohammed Riaz and Abdul Quayyam Raja, then 27, were convicted of the murder.

The People's Justice Party (UK), which won council seats in Birmingham supported by the Mirpuri Pakistanis, was formed on a platform of getting them released.

Another suspect, Mohammad Aslam Mirza, 48, a JKLF extremist, living in USA was identified in 2004, using fingerprints on the gun used to murder Mhatre.

Birmingham Crown Court acquitted Mirza in December 2005 of the three charges of murder, kidnapping and false imprisonment.