Srinagar: A Jammu and Kashmir policeman attached to a Cabinet minister’s security detail and missing since Friday night is reported to have joined the militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.
Policeman Naseer Ahmed Pandit of 11 Battalion, J&K Police, guarding the house of minister for roads and buildings Syed Altaf Ahmed Bukhari here, had decamped with two service (AK) rifles and two loaded magazines. The police had constituted a special investigating team and launched a manhunt to trace him.
On Wednesday Pakistan-based Hizb chief Muhammad Yusuf Shah, alias Syed Salahuddin, in a statement to local news gathering agency CNS claimed the policeman has since joined the outfit. Hizb spokesperson Salim Hashmi confirmed this, saying the outfit has decided to reward Pandit, a resident of Karimabad of southern Pulwama district, for his “daring act”.
The spokesperson added that the Hizb chief, while chairing a meeting of its “command council”, announced Pandit had “formally” joined the outfit.
He quoted Salahuddin as saying, “Pandit is the inspiration for those working for the J&K police. We hope that in coming times more and more cops, in a bid to shatter the haughtiness of pro-Indian actors, will join mujahideen ranks.”
He alleged that the police and other security agencies harassed Pandit’s family during raids at his Karimabad residence and warned of “dire consequences” if they do not desist from such behaviour.
Pandit’s colleagues had told police investigators earlier that three youth were waiting for him outside the minister’s private house at Sheikh Bagh, in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk area, and that he left with them in a private car. The police had immediately raided his house at Karimabad but did not find him there. However, it managed to seize the vehicles in which he had reportedly fled Srinagar.
Taking it as a major “security breach”, the police had immediately set up a SIT and launched a manhunt also for the three youth who picked up Pandit from the minister’s residence and have since been missing from their respective homes in Pulwama district. Pandit had joined the police in 2007.
Meanwhile, the police arrested one of its officers, who allegedly raped a woman in Kargil district a few days ago. An SIT has been constituted to investigate the case, officials here said, adding that the victim, a labourer of Kargil’s Chulichan, Batalik village, had set herself ablaze and was shifted to the district hospital with severe burn injuries after she was allegedly raped by police officer Muhammad Ramzan.
Police officials said the victim had narrated the incident to her husband, but on finding that he did not pay any heed she poured kerosene oil on herself and set herself ablaze in desperation.
