2 SPOs thrashed in J&K, asked to quit or die'

SRINAGAR: Two Special Police Officers (SPOs) were on Tuesday night allegedly thrashed and asked to quit or face the consequences by a group of militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district.

Police sources said that three masked gunmen barged into the houses of SPOs Shakir Ahmed Bhat and Sajad Ahmed Ahanger in Pulwama’s Belou village, beat them up and then asked them to resign or be ready to get killed.

In a similar incident, gunmen had on April 9 this year thrashed a SPO inside his house in Pulwama’s Lassipora village. He also was asked to quit his job or face the consequences. Before and after that incident several SPOs were targeted by suspected militants in different parts of the Valley, mostly in southern districts including Pulwama.

Meanwhile, Hizbul Mujahideen has claimed that a SPO Irfan Ahmed Dar, who had deserted his place of duty (a police station in the highway township of Pampore in Pulwama on Tuesday evening, has joined the outfit.

Its spokesman, quoting a senior outfit commander, told a local newsagency — KNS — that Dar, a resident of Pulwama’s Nehama (Kakapora), has since joined the Hizb ranks. He has also asked the Kashmiri policemen to give up their jobs and join the outfit “to give a push to the resistance struggle.”

Earlier superintendent of police (Awantipore-Pulwama) Muhammad Zahid Malik had confirmed that Dar, working as the SPO with the J&K police, was along with his service rifle missing since Tuesday evening.