Thousands attend funeral of J-K policeman killed by terrorist

Thousands of people, along with senior police officers, on Wednesday attended the funeral prayers of Jammu and Kashmir policeman Ashiq Hussain Qureshi, who was shot dead by a lone terrorist in Anantnag district earlier in the day, officials said.

Head constable Qureshi was on Amarnath Yatra security duty when he was attacked around 12.30 pm at Lal Chowk.

The funeral prayers were held in Beerwah area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district in the evening, where thousands gathered to pay their last respects, officials said.

They said senior police officers, including the Special Director General of Police Javed Gillani, along with Deputy Commissioner Athar Amin Khan, attended the last rites.

Qureshi was later laid to rest at his ancestral graveyard in Beerwah by teary-eyed family members amid an outpouring of grief.

The head constable was posted in the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s IRP 3^rd Battalion. He was critically injured and rushed to the Government Medical College and Hospital in Anantnag, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

The Resistance Front (TRF), a shadow group of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the targeted attack in a social media post shortly after the incident, officials said.