CM Omar Abdullah attends wreath laying ceremony of fallen cop

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday attended the wreath laying ceremony of the Head Constable Jagbir Singh who died while fighting Pakistani terrorists in Juthana area of Kathua district. Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary, Minister Satish Sharma, Director General of Police Nalin Prabhat and other senior civil, police, CRPF, BSF and Army officers also laid wreaths at Gulshan Ground in Jammu. Abdullah, Choudhary and DGP were also seen expressing their condolences to the bereaved family.

Four police personnel and two terrorists believed to be affiliated with Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) outfit were killed in the encounter at a remote forested area of Safiyan.

A wreath laying ceremony of three other policemen was held at district police lines, Kathua, late Friday evening.

The body of Jagbir Singh was retrieved from the encounter site on Friday as it could not earlier be recovered due to heavy gunfight between terrorists and security forces. Singh was in-charge of the local police post.

Talking to reporters after the wreath laying ceremony, Dy CM Choudhary said he hopes that good sense prevails in Pakistan so that the three-decade-long militancy ends. “Both Central or J&K governments will never want our children to be martyred. Our children are being martyred because of conspiracies hatched from across the border but they (Pakistanis) should understand that they have been killing our children for the last over 30 years and achieved nothing.”

Choudhary said the country which is sponsoring terrorism in J&K has destroyed itself and “we hope that good sense will prevail upon them and the sponsored militancy is put to an end. They should understand that J&K and India are not going to become weak by terrorism.”

Minister Satish Sharma said the way in which the policemen fought with the Pakistani terrorists is remarkable. “We do not know how much damage the terrorists would have done but they were stopped by our soldiers. I hope that time has come that Pakistan is given a reply in its own language” Sharma said.

He also urged the Prime Minister, Home Minister, L-G of J&K and the DGP that they should act against terrorism with an iron fist.