Police guards at Jammu and Kashmir advocate general’s house outwit militants, save weapons

This is perhaps the first time in three years that policemen managed to save their weapons without a fight or a scuffle with militants in south Kashmir, the hotbed of militancy

Alert policemen guarding the ancestral home of the Jammu and Kashmir’s advocate general Jahangir Gania outwitted a group of militants and prevented them from snatching their weapons, police sources said on Monday.

Paramilitary soldiers guard the streets in Srinagar. (AP File Photo)

Four men deployed at Gania’s house in Mattan area of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district were tipped off that militants were planning “an action” in the area on Thursday.

They moved quickly to hide their weapons. Barely had they done it, the militants barged into the house where Gania’s parents live.

The law officer was at his official residence in Srinagar.

The militants searched the guardroom and even combed the house for weapons but found nothing. Angry, they thrashed the policemen and ransacked the guardroom before leaving.

“I think policemen got a sense of things and they just manage to hide their weapons at a safe place. By the time police escorts reached the house, militants had left,’’ a police officer privy to investigations said.

Separately, two suspected Hizbul Mujahideen militants who snatched a gun and some ammunition from a police guard were arrested in Rajouri’s Thana Mandi on Monday morning, police said.

In their mid-20s, the two were fleeing to Shopian, their home district, when they were caught.

Militants have made several attempts to snatch weapons ever since the Centre on May 16 unilaterally called off operations in the Valley for the holy month of Ramzan.

In most cases, police have succeeded in warding off the militants though the insurgents have prevailed on three occasions since May.

As many as 149 guns and 102 tear gas shells and grenades had been looted in the state in the past three years, the government told the assembly in January. Of these, 76 were recovered.

Sixty-six guns were snatched in 2016, mostly in south Kashmir after the death of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani.