Five arrested for killing policeman in Budgam

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 17

The police have arrested five persons who “conspired” to kill of a cop guarding Kashmir’s most revered Sufi shrine in central Kashmir’s Budgam district last month.

The police, however, said the mastermind of the case, Shahid Ahmad, who has joined the Jaish-e-Mohammed after the incident, was still at large.

On February 25, Selection Grade Constable Kultar Singh was fired upon by unidentified gunmen from a close range when he was deployed as a guard outside the shrine of Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani at Chrar-e-Sharief, Budgam, some 35 km from Srinagar. Later, he succumbed to his injuries. The militants also snatched his rifle and fled from the spot.

The police later registered a case at the Chrar-e-Sharif police station and started investigation. During the probe, the police seized the vehicle used by militants for commissioning the offence.

“The investigation so far has revealed that one Umar Farooq, a resident of Pulwama, along with five other accomplices — Shahid Ahmad, Shahid Khurshid, Imran Feroz, all residents of Pulwama, and Mudasir Ahmad Wani and Towheed Rather, both residents of Pampore, hatched a criminal conspiracy to snatch the weapon from the policeman deployed at the shrine. They recceed the area and consequently executed the act,” a police spokesman said.

“All accused persons except Shahid Ahmad have been arrested in the case,” he said.