Militants target minister’s house, snatch 4 rifles; two cops injured

Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, March 27

Two policemen were injured, one of them critically, after militants attacked a police post guarding Peoples Democratic Party leader and Minister of State for Haj and Auqaf Farooq Andrabi’s ancestral house in the Dooru area of Anantnag, some 77 km south of the summer capital.

The militants decamped with four rifles from the police post. According to police reports, the incident took place about 10 pm on Sunday night in Shishtergam village of the Dooru area. Andrabi’s parents live at the Shishtergam residence while he resides in the Ujroo area of Dooru.

Andrabi happens to be a close relative of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Anantnag Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Zubair Khan confirmed the incident while talking to The Tribune.

“An unknown number of militants attacked the police post and fired indiscriminately at our men present at the post, injuring two of them,” Khan said adding that “the militants decamped with four SLRs (self-loading rifles).”

He said the two injured policemen were under treatment at the Army’s base hospital in the Badamibagh cantonment area of Srinagar.

“One of them was shot in the thigh and is stable while the other shot in the spinal cord remains critical. I am in touch with the hospital administration,” Khan said.

The SSP said the attack was a case of rifle snatching and had nothing to do with the minister’s family who live in two houses, located some distance from the police post.

Attacks involving rifle snatching have been frequently carried out in south Kashmir over the past couple of years and police posts guarding politician’s houses have emerged as soft targets.

Sunday night’s incident however comes days ahead of the Lok Sabha byelections to be conducted for the Anantnag seat. The bypolls are scheduled for April 12.

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