Police constable decamps with 4 rifles in Budgam

A massive manhunt has been launched in Jammu and Kashmir after a constable decamped with four rifles in Budgam on Saturday ostensibly to join militant ranks.

Confirming the decamping, deputy inspector general of police, central Kashmir, Ghulam Hassan Bhat told Hindustan Times constable Syed Naveed Mushtaq took away four selfloading rifles.

Mushtaq, a native of south Kashmir’s Shopian district, had joined the police force in 2012.

Sources said he might have escaped to join a militant outfit.

He was deployed on guard duty outside Food Corporation of India facility at Chandpora in Budgam district.

Sources said besides his own service rifle, Mushtaq also stole rifles of three other colleagues.

Some reports claimed that one of Mushtaq’s relatives is a militant, but police did not confirm this piece of information.

Over 60 weapons were reportedly snatched from policemen ever since the unrest in the Valley following the death of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani in July last year. But most of them, police sources add, had been recovered.

In a video released last October, Wani’s purported successor Zakir Rashid Bhat had asked the Kashmiri youth to snatch weapons from government forces to join the militant outfit.