SRINAGAR: Police on Sunday claimed to have busted a militant module tasked to killing off-duty policemen by arresting three hybrid militants, who had shot at and injured a policeman in Bemina of Srinagar on December 9.
“The plan of killing off-duty policemen was hatched by a designated terrorist Arjumand Gulzar alias Hamza Burhan, who is now in Pakistan. He hatched a conspiracy and arranged three persons to kill the off-duty policemen and also arranged pistols for them,” Director General of Police (DGP) R R Swain said while addressing a press conference here.
He said the mastermind of killing off-duty policemen here in Valley was Danish Ahmed Malla from Hamdaniya Colony, Bemina. Through him, Hamza recruited two more hybrid terrorists — Imtiyaz Ahmed Khanday and Mehnan Khan, both residents of Srinagar.
“These three persons in Srinagar managed to get pistols. They studied the movement of policeman Mohammad Hafiz Chak living in Hamdaniya Colony of Bemina. They followed his movement for several days. On December 9, they attacked the policeman Mohammad Hafiz at around 7 pm by firing six shots towards him from a pistol after the duty hours. Three bullets hit him and he is undergoing treatment in an army hospital, where doctors have termed his condition as stable. One of the bullet is stuck in his spine,” the DGP said.
He said, “The bullets were fired by Imtiyaz and we have recovered the pistol. Recoveries have further been made during the questioning of the three and technical evidence. A Turkish-made pistol was recovered from arrested militant Mehnan Khan,” he said. DGP said during the interrogation, police learnt that they had identified the targets.