Bodies Of 2 J&K Special Police Officers Found With Multiple Bullet Injuries

The bullet-riddled bodies of the two Special Police Officers (SPOs), who had gone missing during a patrol in the remote Dachhan-Marwah area of Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district, have been recovered. The bodies were recovered by the search party from Dherna post.

The killed SPOs have been identified as Rashpal Kumar (40) and Babi Chand (54).

One of them had a bullet wound on his head, and the other on his back. It appears that terrorists, who had laid an ambush in the area, opened fire while the two were moving towards the Dherna post to relieve two of their colleagues on duty.

The INSAS and .303 rifles they were carrying are missing. It appears the terrorists took away their weapons after killing them.

According to preliminary information, both were on patrol duty along with the Army and were on their way to the Dherna post when they went missing.

Sources said gunshots were also heard in the area during the daytime. Initially, their mobile phones were reachable, but later both phones went switched off, raising serious concern.

When the two SPOs did not return, a search operation was launched. Finally, this morning, their bodies were recovered from the Dherna Top area.

A joint search operation by police and security forces has been further intensified to arrest the killers behind the act.

Kishtwar has remained a focus of security operations to eliminate the remaining terrorists presence in its remote and forested areas. Successive counter-insurgency operations have resulted in the killing of several active terrorists, significantly weakening their presence in the district.

The incident comes weeks after another SPO, 55-year-old Bashir Ahmed, was found dead near his residence in Wanipora Trigam in Kishtwar on October 16. Ahmed, who was posted at the Pedil Police Post, had gone missing while heading home from duty along with his service-issued Self-Loading Rifle (SLR) and magazine. A police investigation later established that he had been murdered by relatives over an ongoing land dispute.