by Tahir Bhat
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Police on Sunday claimed to have arrested two militants and one over ground worker (OGW) who, according to police carried out an attack on a police post in Srinagar’s Chanpora belt.
Addressing a press conference here, Dr Haseeb Mughal, SSP Srinagar said, “Police have arrested three accused from Wathora, Budgam who allegedly carried the attack on police post-Chanapora.”
SSP Srinagar identified the detained militants as Mushtaq Ahmad Gojri son of Ali Mohammad Gijri a resident of Balpora Chadoora and Junaid Shafi Dar son of Mohammad Shafi Dar a resident of Bunhara Wathora Budgam.
He said an OGW identified as Lateef Ahmad Dar son of Farooq Ahmad Dar a resident of Bunhara Wathora was also arrested.
Detailing the modus operandi, Dr Haseeb said the trio came to Chanapora on a motorcycle but left it some distance away from the police post. Then, one of them, named Junaid, went inside the police post with the excuse of tracking the status of passport verification. He checked the place and told his associates that there is no deployment.
He said that then Junaid came back to the post and was accompanied by another person named Mushtaq who was wearing a pheran and a helmet. When Mushtaq was asked to remove the pheran for mandatory search, he took out a pistol and fired on the sentry resulting in serious injuries to the sentry.
Mushtaq, according to police, has done Masters in Education from the University of Kashmir from 2015 to 2018. He is a friend of active Jaish militant Sameer Ahmad Dar., Mughal said
“Mushtaq and Sameer were classmates in KU and Sameer was doing Masters in Earth Sciences. It was on Sameer’s direction that they tried to loot weapons in Srinagar,” SSP said.
Dr Haseeb said a Chinese pistol, 2 magazines, a belt and 6 live rounds were recovered from them when they were arrested.
He said, “We have registered a case FIR No: 79/2019 under relevant sections of law at Police Station Sadder in the matter.”
“All the incriminating materials recovered have been taken into case records for the purpose of investigation and probe their complicity in other crimes and further investigation is going on,” said SSP Srinagar.
The attack on police post-Chanapora was carried out on Friday evening resulting in injuries to one policeman constable Feroz Ahmad who is now undergoing treatment at SKIMS Soura. However, militant outfit al-Umar Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for the attack. “We are investigating why a different outfit stake the claim for the attack,” Mughal said when asked about the claim by al-Umar.
Mughal said the case was cracked by police and arrests were made with the help of the army during the same night.
Asked about the state of militancy in Srinagar, the city police chief said he may not be able to reveal the exact details. However, he put the number at around seven. “Since the city is closer to Pulwama, the militants have a corridor to escape after operating in Srinagar,” Mughal said.
