Militants abduct 3 more in Kashmir

Militants on Friday evening abducted three persons, including a former special police officer (SPO), from Reben village of south Kashmir's Shopian district.

A police official said that unidentified militants abducted former SPO Basharat Wagay, Riyaz Ahmad and Zahid from the village, 52 km from Srinagar, at around 4:30 pm.

Six militants were killed in two separate encounters with security forces in the district during the last 10-days while nearly 40 ultras, almost all of them locals, were naturalised this year.

The abductions are the latest in the series of such incidents last week in Shopian. As many as nine people were abducted by the militants last week from different villages of Shopian last week. Of them seven were later set free while two— teenagers Huzaif Ashraf and Nadeem Manzoor— were killed.

While Nadeem's body was pumped with bullets, Huzaif’s throat was slit.

The IS-style execution of the two teenagers was accompanied by videos of the savagery circulated on social media.

One of the released abductees was also shot and injured by his captors.

Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo in an audio message released on social media threatened to kill those "who work for army and police as informers."

"We do not want to kill anyone, but they (informers) are forcing us. We will expose more such videos in the future and traitors will face similar fate," he said.

In Kashmir, the acts of beheadings and mutilations have occurred with some regularity along the Line of Control and carried out by Border Action Teams (BATs) of Pakistan army.

However, it is for the first that a Kashmiri has been filmed while his throat is being slit and the video circulated on the internet.

A few such incidents occurred in north of Kashmir’s Bandipora district, early this year, but they were not filmed.

A senior police officer said that the militants were carrying IS-type executions in Kashmir to deter civilians from passing on information to the security forces.

“In the last few months, local recruitment into militant ranks has shown a drastic decline. The incidents of stone pelting and crowds trying to break security cordons during encounters have also come down significantly. This has frustrated militant handlers and they are trying to scare people through such acts,” he revealed.