Terror angle being probed in J&K DG Prison's murder

According to top J&K Police officials, the accused Yasir was aggressive in his behaviour and was also suffering from depression.

Published on: Oct 4, 2022, 09:55:12 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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The initial investigation into the murder of Jammu and Kashmir Director General (Prison) Hemant Lohia has pointed to the role of his domestic help Yasir Ahmed.

Yasir Ahmed, the main accused in the murder of J&K DG(Prisons) Hemant Lohia.

Hemant Lohia was found dead at his house in Jammu's Udeywala with his throat slit late Monday night. The incident took place at around 11.45 pm. A native of Assam, the 57-year-old cop was recently promoted and appointed as the DG Prisons in August.

According to top Jammu and Kashmir Police officials, CCTV footages collected from the crime spot shows Yasir running away after committing the crime.

The killing comes at a time when Union home minister Amit Shah is in Jammu and Kashmir and will be visiting Srinagar today.

According to J&K Police officials, Yasir was working in the senior cop's house for the past six months. The initial probe has revealed that he was quite aggressive in his behaviour and was also said to be suffering from depression.

As of now, no terror angle has come to the fore. However, thorough probe is underway into the killing that has sent shockwaves across the Kashmir Valley. The murder weapon has been seized along with some documentary evidence reflecting his mental state.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police has asked citizens to share any information of Yasir Ahmed with the concerned authorities. The police has also shared phone numbers (9797517317, 9419101474, 0191-2543937) for people to inform them about Yasir's whereabouts.

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