Militants kill J&K teacher, leave note of ‘revenge’ for encounter at house

SRINAGAR: A school teacher was found dead with his throat slit in south Kashmir’s Shopian district on Wednesday, a week after three militants were killed in a gunbattle with security forces at his house, police said.

The body of Aijaz Ahmad of Wathoo village was found in an open field a few kilometres from his house. According to police, a hand-written note was found with his belongings that said he was killed “to avenge the death of the three militants in Gattipora’’.

Three Hizbul Mujahideen militants had been killed in an encounter in Gattipora on October 10.

“We cannot say who wrote it. We are investigating all angles,’’ Shriram Dinkar Ambarkar, Shopian’s superintendent of police, said.

In an unrelated incident, unidentified militants shot dead Haleem Gujjar, a special police officer (SPO) in Tral area of Pulwama district, at his home in Gutroo village. A manhunt is on for the assailants, the police said.

Apart from Ahmad’s killing, the Shopian revenge letter, written in Urdu, also warned that people “working with the army or police’’ face dire consequences.

“We have names of all those working with security forces and this is the last warning for them,’’ the letter said.

Ahmad reportedly featured in a video, posted by a newspaper on its website, as “being helped out of the encounter site by jawans’’. Security forces normally evacuate civilians trapped in encounter sites.