Two suspected terrorists attacked a patrolling party, stationed at Tander police picket under the jurisdiction of Dacchan police station of Kishtwar district, with axes and fled away with their service weapons after killing one of them on the spot and seriously injuring other on Monday.
The injured SPO was evacuated by the jawans of the nearby police post and airlifted to Government Medical college hospital in Jammu where he was undergoing treatment till the time of filing the report. Meanwhile, the joint teams of the Special Operations group of Kishtwar police and Army have launched massive manhunt in the area to track down the assailants. According to official sources, one of the suspected terrorist, facing charges of rape, was released on bail barely 20 days ago.
Inspector General of Police, Jammu range, Mukesh Singh also rushed to Kishtwar to supervise the ongoing operations.
Sharing details of the gruesome attack, police spokesman in a statement said, "at around 1.30 p.m police picket Tander Kishtwar reported that two assailants attacked two SPOs namely Pashid Iqbal and Vishal at some distance (about 200/300 metres) from the post Tander Dachhan with axes and seriously injured both of them".
Out of these two, SPO Pashid Iqbal succumbed to his injuries while SPO Vishal Singh was airlifted to GMC, Jammu.
According to police, both the SPO's had gone to the upper area of Tander for patrolling. The assailants have been identified as Basharat Hussain S/O Gh. Qadir Gainoo and Ashiq Hussain S/O Bashir Ahmed both residents of village Tander, Dachhan.
According to police, Ashiq Hussain was involved in case FIR No 06/2018 U/S 363,376 RPC of P/S Dachhan. He went out on bail 20 days back. Former BJP Minister and ex MLA, Kishtwar Sunil Sharma visited GMC, Jammu to meet injured SPO. Sharma told reporters, an attempt is being made since 2018 to revive militancy in the region.
He said, after large number of active militants, involved in killing of BJP leaders and RSS worker and his PSO were neutralised, several active OGW's have been making desperate bids to revive militancy. He said it is for this reason the assailants involved in the attack on SPO's have fled away with their service weapons.