SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Wednesday claimed to have arrested an overground worker of militants for the killing of Territorial Army jawan Irfan Dar and identified three of the other four militants involved in the case.
“The abduction and killing of sepoy Dar, 23, has been cracked and one of the co-conspirators has been arrested,” Shopian SP Ambarkar Shriram Dinkar said.
Dar’s bullet-riddled body was found in Wuthmula village in Shopian district on November 25. He was posted with 175 Territorial Army (Engineers) in Bandipora district and was on leave.
Dinkar said the investigation had revealed that four militants and their overground worker Muzamil, a resident of Shirmal in Shopian, had hatched the conspiracy to kill Dar. While Muzamil went to Dar’s native place and brought him to an orchard at Wuthmula, two of the four militants waiting for the soldier there fired at him, the SP said.
“During interrogation, Muzamil admitted to his role and identified the four militants involved,” he said.
He identified three of the four militants as Saddam Padder and Bilal Mohand, both residents of Shopian and belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen, and Lashkar-e-Toiba’s Touseef, a resident of Gadbugh in Palwama.
“A newly recruited unidentified militant was also part of the conspiracy,” Dinkar said, adding efforts are on to identify and arrest him.
Dar was the third off-duty Kashmiri security personnel to be killed by militants in Kashmir this year.
On May 10, army officer Lt. Umar Fayaz was kidnapped and killed in South Kashmir’s Shopian district. He was on leave to attend the wedding of a close relative.
On September 27, an off-duty BSF personnel Mohammad Ramzan Parray was killed and four of his family members injured by militants at his house in Hajin area of North Kashmir’s Bandipora district.