J&K: Two cops with service rifles go missing in Pulwama

Two personnel of Jammu and Kashmir police went missing with their service weapons in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Thursday.

Sources said that Shabir Ahmad Dar of Pulwama and Sulimman Ahmad Khan of Shopian vanished with two assault rifles from District Police Lines (DPL) Pulwama on Thursday morning. The SPOs might have joined militants like several other policemen who ran away along with service rifles in the last four years, they said.

Following the incident, reports said, police have sounded an alert across south Kashmir and launched a hunt to nab the fleeing SPOs.

SPOs are recruited by the police on a fixed monthly remuneration of Rs 6000. The wages of SPOs are given by the state government and reimbursed by the Centre under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme. The police maintain SPOs are an important element in their strategy to combat militancy.

Although the police-militant nexus dates back to the early 1990s, the trend of cops deserting with weapons to join militancy emerged only after 2015.

Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a charge sheet in a similar case involving the loot of weapons from the Jawahar Nagar residence of the then PDP MLA Aijaz Ahmad Mir.

“NIA, today (06.06.2019) filed a Charge Sheet in Case RC-32/2018/NIA/DLI, relating to the theft of 07 AK rifles and one pistol along with ammunition on 28.09.2018, from the official residence of PDP’s Ex- MLA from Wachi, Aijaz Ahmad Mir at Srinagar,” said a spokesman, in a statement.

Giving details, he said a case FIR No. 57/2018 dated 28.09.2018 was initially registered by J&K Police at Police station Rajbagh, Srinagar against Adil Bashir Sheikh, who was deployed as an SPO at the above-mentioned residence.