JOIN USA policeman in Jammu and Kashmir deserted his police station on Friday night, taking an AK-47 service rifle along with him.
The absconder, Special Police Officer Mohammad Yaseen, was posted at the Marwah police station in Kishtwar district.
Deputy Inspector General (Doda-Kishtwar range) Basant Kumar Rath said the police are in the process of tracking Yaseen down.
Sources said Yaseen, a native of Shishnan village of Kishtwar, may have joined the militancy, like several other police officers who ran away with their service rifles in the last three years.
These officers had decamped with the service rifles of fellow officers and joined the militancy.
In May 2017, a police officer decamped with four assault rifles in central Kashmir's Budgam district and joined the Hizbul Mujahideen.
In 2015, a cop-turned-militant, Naseer Ahmad Pandit, of the 11 battalion of Jammu and Kashmir Armed Police, who was posted at the guard room of PDP minister Altaf Bukhari's residence in Srinagar, decamped with two AK-47 rifles.
He was killed in an encounter with the security forces in 2016.
Meanwhile, militants on Saturday evening lobbed a grenade at a police station in Shopian district. However, there were no reports of damages.