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“Ghulam’s family is devastated. He has seven daughters. The youngest one is four years old. She keeps looking for her father around the house,” Bashir Ahmad Parray, brother-in-law of head constable Ghulam Mohammad Dar, told The Quint, a day after Dar was allegedly shot dead by suspected militants near his house in Kashmir's Baramulla district on 31 October.
Dar had joined the police force in 1996 and was posted at many places across Kashmir, including Gulmarg, Anantnag and Pahalgam, as a special officer of the Tourist Police. The 52-year-old was also posted in Pulwama.
“In his 27 years of service, there has never been any complaint against him. He was a sincere officer who used to help everyone. He was very social and had good relations with everyone,” Parray added.
This is the third militant attack in the Valley in the last three days.
On Sunday, an off-duty police inspector Masroor Ahmad Wani was shot at while playing cricket at Eidgah ground in Srinagar. His condition remains critical even as he is receiving treatment at a Srinagar hospital. A day after, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao was allegedly shot dead by terrorists in Pulwama.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Kashmir Zone Police stated that terrorists fired on Jammu and Kashmir Police Head Constable Ghulam Mohammad Dar at his residence in Wailoo Kralpora in Baramulla district. Dar was shifted to a hospital nearby, where he succumbed to his injuries, the police said.
The police added that the area has been cordoned off for search operations, and that a First Information Report (FIR) has been filed in Pattan Baramulla police station.
‘Heard Firing Before Namaz, Son Told Me Ghulam Was Shot At’
Recounting the fateful day when his brother-in-law was allegedly shot dead, Parray told The Quint:
“It was around 6:45pm. I was going to read my namaz when we heard firing in the area. Five shots were fired. I immediately asked my son to get back home from our shop. On his way back, he called me and said that Ghulam uncle was lying in a pool of blood outside his house.”
Parray lives hardly a kilometre away from Dar’s house. He added that Dar used to love playing cricket and was a fan of authentic Kashmiri meat and rice.
“He was the only earning member of the family of nine. We request the Lieutenant Governor (Manoj Sinha) to intervene in the matter and provide the family with some assistance in the form of employment of Dar’s daughters,” Parray appealed.
‘Rise in Targeted Killings’
Taking cognisance of the incidents, former J&K chief minister and People's Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti condemned the “cowardly acts.” She wrote on X:
The incident took place on the day the Jammu and Kashmir Police underwent a change of guard, with the intelligence chief of the Union Territory and 1991 batch IPS officer R.R. Swain taking over as the new director general of the J&K Police.
National Conference leader and former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah also responded to Dar’s killing on X, saying, “Deeply saddened to hear about the death of Head Constable Ghulam Mohammad Dar in a militant attack earlier this evening. His death is yet another indicator of the terrible price JK Police personnel have paid in the decades long fight against terror in the region. I pray that he find place in jannat and his loved ones find strength at this difficult time.”
After the abrogation of Article 370, which took away the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir, in 2019, there has been a sharp increase in the number of targeted attacks on migrant workers and non-Muslim staff.
According to a report in The Hindu, there have been 29 targets attacks on civilians and non-local labourers in Kashmir in 2022, whereas militants launched 12 attacks, including grenade lobbing, on security forces in the Valley in the same year.
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