Missing Palhallan youth found dead along with ‘snatched rifle’

Srinagar, August 06: A missing youth from Palhallan was found dead in a house in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district along with a snatched rifle, police said Wednesday.

A police official told that acting on a tip-off, police’s Special Operation Group (SOG), army’s 29 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and 176 Battalion Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) cordoned off Suraipora village of Kreeri in the district. “While the cordon was being laid, few gunshots were heard from a house,” the official said, adding: “The police party approached the house and recovered the body of Mudasir Ahmad Sofi.”
The house belonged to Ghulam Muhammad Mir, sources said.
The police official said an INSAS rifle was recovered near the deceased along with some used cartridges. “Initial investigation revealed that the rifle belonged to the policeman who was attacked in Pattan with an axe few days back.”
An Indian Reserve Police (IRP) personal identified as Firdous Ahmad Baba was attacked with an axe in main market Pattan on Saturday late afternoon.
The police said Mudasir was behind the rifle snatching. “This militant had snatched rifle of a Policeman in Pattan few days back,” it said.
Police sources said the youth was missing from Ist August, a day before the Pattan incident, and his family had lodged the missing report at Pattan police station.
Official sources said one needs to have proper training to handle INSAS rifle and it is quite possible that the youth may have died due to accidental fire. “But, other angles can’t be ruled out,” they said.
A senior police official told GNS they are investigating the matter. “See, we are not claiming that we killed him. We can’t say how he died. We have launched investigations,” he said.
A source in police’s counter-insurgency wing claimed that the youth was mentally unfit and committed suicide. But, the locals of Palhallan rubbished the claims and said the youth was ‘absolutely fit’. “His elder brother is mentally unwell while another brother is also ill, but Mudasir was all right,” Muhammad Ismail, a local, told.
Mudasir is a resident of neighbouring Palhallan village. Sources said Mudasir’s father was a militant Commander associated with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and was killed in year 1992.
Meanwhile, as the news of youth’s death spread in Palhallan, the shopkeepers downed their shutters and vehicular movement got affected. The situation in the area became tense with people coming out on the streets.
The locals of Palhallan allege that the youth was killed in custody. “We are also saying and the people at Kreeri also say that it is a custodial killing,” they alleged. Eyewitnesses said hundreds of people participated in the funeral of the youth and amid pro-freedom and anti-India slogans, the youth was buried in the martyrs’ graveyard.
The family of the slain youth was a student of Ist year at Pattan college and had no militant connections in the past. “Mudasir was missing from past few days and that is what we know,” his uncle, Ghulam Muhammad Sofi, told GNS over phone.