NEW DELHI: The release of hardline separatist leader Masrat Alam by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government in Jammu and Kashmir has put coalition partner BJP on a sticky wicket, with the party now claiming that it was not taken into confidence.While PDP leader Mufti is using the release of Alam, who organised anti-India protests in the Valley in 2010 that saw the death of 112 people, as an image-building exercise, BJP appears helpless to stop him. There seems more trouble for BJP as top sources in the central government revealed that Mufti was now trying to ensure the release of Ashiq Hussain Faktoo , lodged in Srinagar jail for past 22 years, making him the longest serving prisoner in the Valley.A senior BJP leader said issue of release of “political prisoners” was discussed while PDP and BJP were negotiating the common minimum programme, but asserted there was no deal. “There was merely a discussion on whether the status of political prisoners should be reviewed. Since there was no agreement, it was not included in the CMP,” the leader said.RSS has sounded a word of caution saying it goes against party’s core ideology of nationalism. Party chief Amit Shah met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and other Sangh leaders in Nagpur on Saturday. “RSS asked BJP to tread carefully and not make compromises,” a Sangh leader claimed.The security agencies too have redflagged the issue saying it would raise the spectre of terrorism in the Valley again. They say that release of militants like Alam and Faktoo — if it comes through — will vitiate the atmosphere. Faktoo is a top-ranking former commander of the Islamist outfit Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen . He has been serving life imprisonment for his alleged involvement in the murder of human rights activist HN Wanchoo. Married to separatist activist and Dukhtaraan-e-Millat chief Syeda Asiya Andrabi, Faktoo’s case is pending before the Supreme Court.“If the Mufti government insists on his release, it will bring it on collision course with the Centre that has been arguing against his release in SC. It will be embarrassing if the state exercise its power of remission, which the Omar Abdullah government had refused,” said a senior intelligence official.He told ET that release of Alam and perhaps some more separatist leaders would make the task of agencies much harder. “BJP was not taken into confidence and nor were the security agencies,” the official said.BJP leaders in the Capital said Mufti was playing the dangerous communal card to consolidate his own position. “The fact that he entered an alliance with BJP did not go down well with the people in Kashmir. Now he is trying to build his image in the Valley. It is great politics by him but puts BJP in an extremely awkward position,” one of the leaders said. “BJP can’t be seen to be supporting what Mufti is doing and cannot walk out of the new alliance. We should have seen it coming in view of the utterances Mufti has been making ever since he took over,” he added.