Injured Councillor succumbs
Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Mar 30: Inspector General of Police, Kashmir Zone, Vijay Kumar, today said that chairman Municipal Committee Sopore should have informed the police in advance before the meeting during which the attack was carried out by militants and admitted that there was a security lapse.
Two Councillors and a policeman were killed as militants fired indiscriminately upon the Municipal Councilors near Lone Building opposite SDH Sopore in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district yesterday.
“When there was a meeting of Municipal committee, the Chairman should have informed the police as such there was no additional deployment. There were four security men, two from security wing and two from police,” Kumar told reports on the sidelines of the wreath laying ceremony of a CRPF trooper, who succumbed to the injuries suffered by him in Lawaypora attack last week.
“…they also had 4 PSOs and at the time of the attack, those PSOs should have retaliated. If they would have acted promptly, they would have killed the militants and the incident would not have taken place”, he said.
The IGP said that there was a security lapse in Sopore attack. “There was a security lapse and for that, all four PSOs will be suspended, while two of them have already been suspended”, he said.
He said that police personnel will be retrained and there is a shortage of Bullet Proof vehicles and that too will be taken care of.
Kumar said that an OGW was arrested who disclosed that one local and foreign militant carried out the attack. “We have arrested an OGW Ashiq and upon interrogation he said that Mudasir Pandit along with a foreign militant carried the attack. They had come to his residence before the incident where they planned the attack”, Kumar said.
The IGP said that police and Army had launched cordon-and-search-operations at two places and they managed to escape. “In fact they had escaped before cordon and very soon they will be neutralized”, he added.
Asked about increase in militant attack in Srinagar, IGP said: “There have been incidents and I admit. We are increasing our operations. Wherever there is technical mistake or mistakes by our policemen, CRPF and Army, we are plugging it and controlling it.”
On the detention of some youth in Baramulla, he said: “They had gone to see graveyard where militant was buried as against Pakistan which had been wrongly reported in media.”
Asked if the vehicles with outside registration numbers are seized for being used by militants, he said: “SOP is that within 15 days, the vehicles are to be registered. Some of these vehicles were not registered for years. All the recent incidents, may it be Parimpora, Lawaypora or used in drugs, all are with outside registration numbers which have not been registered here. RTO Kashmir has issued a circular and people need to register their vehicles”, he said.
In the meantime, another Municipal Councillor who injured in militant attack in Sopore today succumbed to his injuries at SMHS hospital, taking death toll to three in the attack.
Shams-ud-din Peer, who was wounded, succumbed to his injuries at SMHS hospital during the night.
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