J&K cop volunteered to fight terrorists for 14 years, then again at Handwara

Sageer Ahmed Pathan was incharge of the SOG team that accompanied the 21 Rashtriya Rifles and the district police when the operation to search the terrorists was launched.

Updated on: May 3, 2020, 23:38:37 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Sageer Ahmed Pathan, the police officer who made the supreme sacrifice in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Saturday evening, had volunteered to join the Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police nearly 14 ago. When a team of four army officers and jawans led by Colonel Ashutosh Sharma decided to walk into the Handwara house to pull out the family that was believed to have been held hostage, Pathan alias Qazi stepped forward. Like he always had.

Sageer Ahmed Pathan was born in Trad village of Kupwara district’s Karnah tehsil that is located right along the Line of Control in 1978. (HT Photo)

That was the last anyone saw him, alive.

Pathan was also the natural choice to join the risky mission.

Also read | ‘Assalamualaikum’: How one word changed the course of Handwara encounter

The 41-year-old, a father of three daughters and a son, had been the go-to man for many in the 21 Rashtriya Rifles, the army’s counter-insurgency unit. He was not only courageous but was also familiar with the district. This was his home.

Pathan was born in Trad village of Kupwara district’s Karnah tehsil that is located right along the Line of Control in 1978. He grew up around this place and joined the J&K Armed Police in 1999.

In 2006, he made the switch and volunteered to join the Special Operations Group, the specialised anti-militancy team. He was good at his job. So good that in the next 14 years, he landed himself three out-of-turn promotions and a bunch of awards and commendation certificates.

Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police Dilbag Singh said during his posting in SOG, he led various successful anti-terror operations.”In recognition of his immense contribution, he was granted three out-of-turn promotions and he rose from the rank of a constable to sub-inspector over the years,” he said. Pathan, or Qazi as many called him, honoured with Police Medal for Gallantry in 2011, Sher-i-Kashmir Police Medal for Gallantry in 2009, besides DGP Commendation Medal and GOC-in-C, Northern Command Commendation Disc.

Also read | ‘Went in to rescue civilians’: Colonel, Major among 5 killed in action in Handwara

Pathan was incharge of the SOG team that accompanied the 21 Rashtriya Rifles and the district police when the operation to search the terrorists was launched. ”He was part of the original team which went in to evacuate the civilian inmates in the target house who were taken hostage by the hiding terrorists,” a Jammu and Kashmir police statement said.

“The team could safely rescue the inmates but came under heavy fire from the terrorists, during the evacuation process and attained martyrdom,” the statement said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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