F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s chief military spokesperson has rebuffed an Indian media report that a decorated Kashmir police officer was arrested for helping to transport ‘Hizbul terrorists’, calling it an ill-planned attempt to stage a false flag operation against Pakistan.
Tweeting from his private account on Sunday, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) DG Major General Asif Ghafoor said, “After failed drama of killing and mutilating a Kashmiri near LoC [Line of Control], ill-planned attempt for repeat of Delhi2001/Mumbai 2008 type false flag [operation] looks failed”.
He hoped that the results of investigations will be made public and arrested suspects would be found listed in an Indian jail.
According to Indian media reports, DSP Davinder Singh was apprehended late on Saturday when his vehicle was pulled over at a police checkpoint south of Srinigar.
Singh, according to reports, had worked for the police for decades and was a member of an elite counter-insurgency force in the occupied territory.
“The fast moving car was stopped and searched. Two ‘wanted militants’ and our officer… and a third person were arrested in the operation,” Kashmir police chief Vijay Kumar told reporters.
Kumar said police and intelligence agencies were questioning Singh, accusing the officer of a “heinous crime”.
Security forces also claimed recovering guns and ammunition from several locations in the follow up to the arrests, including from Singh’s residence in Srinagar.
One of those arrested was identified as ‘Naveed Babu’, who the Indian police claimed was the deputy commander of a freedom fighters group, “Hizbul Mujahideen”.
Babu had stolen four assault rifles and deserted the police force to join the rebel group in 2017, according to police.
Singh, on the other hand, had risen steadily through the ranks of the Kashmir security apparatus during his career and was last year awarded a medal by the Indian president for his bravery.
But years earlier he was accused of forcing a man to help armed militants travel to New Delhi in a deadly attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
Twelve people including five attackers were killed in the attack, which India blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups, a claim Pakistan has categorically rejected. This prompted a months-long military stand-off that brought the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of war.
Singh acknowledged in 2006 he had tortured his accuser, Mohammad Afzal Guru, while he was in custody, but the claims were not taken seriously by investigators.
Kumar told Sunday’s press conference that the allegations would now be revisited. “We will ask him about the attack in the interrogation,” the IOK police chief said.
Scores of freedom fighters’ groups in Kashmir have fought India’s administration of the territory since an armed rebellion broke out more than three decades ago.
Police and Indian troops are routinely accused of human rights abuses against the local population.
Security across the territory has been tightened since August 5, when India revoked the occupied valley’s semi-autonomous status, arrested the region’s top political leaders and imposed a security and communications blockade.
