Arrested Kashmir DSP may be stripped of gallantry award

srinagar — The nexus between a decorated Jammu and Kashmir Police officer and the terrorists is likely to ruffle many a feather as the past of the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Devinder Singh is going to haunt the intelligence agencies for long.

Following his arrest on Saturday, the Jammu and Ksahmir Police has apprised the Ministry of Home Affairs about the arrest, and the Home Secretary has been briefed on the Kulgam encounter.

Singh, who had joined the counter-insurgency Special Operations Group (SoG) of Jammu and Kashmir Police as a subinspector and he rose quickly to the rank of a DSP in addition to earning the prestigious police medal for gallantry ostensibly for his anti-militancy duties, will now be interrogated by Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing and Military Intelligence teams.

There are chances that Singh will be stripped off of his Presidents Gallantry Medal award, sources said, adding that the process was under consideration. Singh’s name first appeared in the grey zone after Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru levelled serious allegation against him during his defence in the trial court. But back then both the state police and the intelligence agencies had dismissed those allegations as a figment of a terrorist’s mind.

Guru had alleged in his defence that Singh tortured him and threatened to kill his family unless he carried out his directions. Guru alleged in a written affidavit and through statements carried in the local media that Singh had forced him to carry the Parliament attack terrorists to Delhi, hire a flat there and also buy a second hand white ambassador car for the use of the terrorists. It was this white ambassador car that the terrorists used during the Parliament attack in 2001.

After his disgraceful arrest on Saturday, while he was carrying a dreaded terrorist Naveed Baba of Kashmir’s Shopian district to Jammu in his private car, Singh has told interrogators that he had harboured the terrorist in his Srinagar residence before the travel.

Naveed Baba was wanted by the police for the murder of 11 civilians, who included non local labourers, truck drivers and fruit merchants, after the abrogation of Article 370.

Police said that Devinder Singh had been harbouring terrorists in his home in Jammu and also in his ancestral home in Tral town of Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

The operation is being seen as a huge success for J&K Police, DGP Dilbagh Singh, IGP Vijay Kumar and DIG Atul Kumar Goel. “For the heinous crime of carrying the terrorist to Jammu, he had taken Rs1.2 million from the terrorist. He has been booked as a terrorist and he will be dealt as such,” Vijay Kumar, Inspector General of Police Kashmir zone said. —