Sacked Woman Cop Suspected To Be OGW: Police

‘Booked For Raising Anti-India, Pro-Freedom Slogans’

A day after police sacked and arrested a woman cop for allegedly glorifying militancy; police on Saturday dismissed "over-reach" and an" excessively strict action" against the Special Police Official (SPO) saying she was a suspected over-ground worker of militants and was booked on charges of shouting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans.

Saima Akhter, a resident of Frisal area of south Kashmir district and working as SPO, was on Friday arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, a police spokesperson said.

In a rebuttal issued on Saturday, a police spokesperson said that it has been found that on various media platforms, a number of vested interests with malafide intentions have put in a lot of efforts into making the incident appear like an "over-reach" and an" excessively strict action,”

“It is clarified that the accused woman uttered antiIndia and pro-freedom slogans off-camera thus

inviting penal action under ULA(P)Act,” he said.

He further said that the utterances made by the woman cop on-camera was live streamed for further dissemination on diverse social media platforms with the intention to cause disruption of an ongoing operation and to incite disaffection towards the state.

“This is punishable under the Indian Penal Code and ULA (P) Act. Also, the accused being a police employee, is bound by a code of conduct which was brazenly violated by her. Thus the concurrent departmental action has been taken against her,” he said.

Divulging more details of the case, the police spokesperson claimed that the household of the accused was a suspected shelter point of an active Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant Aslam Dar and the woman cop has been on police radar as a suspected OGW.

“Thus was subjected to search. It remains to be investigated whether her act was meant as a disruption tactic to aid escape of the said militant when the search operation was underway,” the police spokesperson said.

He also requested that no heed should be paid towards those trying to paint the incident in any hue other than a criminal act.