SRINAGAR: Despite the Army downplaying the incident, 16 Army men, including three lieutenant colonels, have been named in the FIR filed for assaulting policemen in a station in Jammu and Kashmir’s border district of Kupwara and abducting a cop.
In the alleged assault by the Army men on Tuesday evening, five policemen, including the Station House Officer (SHO), sustained injuries.
Police have registered FIR No. 121/2024 under Sections 186, 332, 307, 342 147, 149, 392, 397 and 365 of the Indian Penal Code, and No. 7/25 under the Arms Act against the personnel of 160 Territorial Army unit. The FIR names 16 soldiers, including three officers of the lieutenant colonel rank, namely Lt Col Ankit Sood, Lt Col Rajiv Chauhan and Lt Col Nikhil.
The FIR accused that the 16 Army men entered the Kupwara police station premises unauthorisedly at around 9.40 pm on Tuesday. “On being questioned about their arrival in the police station, they collectively and without any provocation, in the form of unlawful assembly, severely attacked the staff and officers present at the Kupwara police station with rifle butts, kicks and stocks,” it stated. It further said that when senior police officers reached the station to rescue the policemen, the Army men brandished their weapons, snatched the mobile phones of the injured policemen and the station house officer.
“While leaving the station, the Army men abducted a policeman, Ghulam Rasool,” it reads. The investigation of the case is being led by a deputy superintendent of police.
Sources said the Army barged into the police station and beat up policemen after they had allegedly raided the house of a Territorial Army jawan in Batapora village of Kupwara and called him to the station for investigation in a case.
The Army, however, has downplayed the incident. “The reports of an altercation between police and Army personnel and beating up therein of police personnel are incorrect,” said a Srinagar-based defence spokesperson.
What provoked Army men
Sources said the soldiers beat up the policemen after they had allegedly raided the house of a Territorial Army jawan in Batapora village of Kupwara and called him to the station to investigate a case.