Ultras loot four AK-47 rifles from Cong leader’s home

Suspected militants looted four Ak-47 rifles from Congress legislator Mohammad Muzzafar Parray's residence in Srinagar after allegedly overpowering a security guard.

Sources said one of the personal security officers (PSO) of the legislator had told senior officials that unidentified militants came to the official residence at uptown Jawahar Nagar and took away four AK-47 rifles, after overpowering him.

Parray, they said, was not present in the house when the incident happened as he is in winter capital Jammu along with his family. He was informed by senior police officers that the weapons were missing from his J-37 residence at Jawahar Nagar and his PSOs have been taken into custody for questioning, they said.

Inspector General of Police, Kashmir Range, Swaym Prakash Pani confirmed that four rifles were missing from the residence of the legislator. Immediately after the incident, a high alert was sounded across Srinagar and all routes leading to South Kashmir were being sealed to nab the culprits.

In September this year, a special police officer looted seven rifles and a licensed pistol from the residence of a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader in the same locality. The SPO, Adil Bashir Sheikh, had later appeared in a picture along with a group of militants. The looted weapons were also displayed in the photograph.

Police had detained all the seven PSOs of the PDP leader, whose weapons were looted by their colleague, for questioning and they were suspended for their callous approach towards duties.

Earlier in October, militants snatched two weapons from policemen guarding a retired police officer’s house in central Kashmir’s Budgam district.

In May this year, the police blamed the overuse of smartphones by its personnel for the rise in the number of incidents of weapon snatching and banned their use during duty hours, especially by sentries.

In the last more than three years several incidents have been reported in the Valley, where policemen decamped with the service rifles of fellow cops and later joined militants. In several cases, militants overpowered the policemen to snatch their weapons.