Slain Jammu SPO Had Raised Deployment Worries Before Attack

Special Police Officer Bobby Chand, who was killed alongside his nephew Rachpal Kumar in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district, had earlier raised concerns about his weekly deployment at a Temporary Operational Base outside his post's local area.

Police Visit And Claims

Jammu Inspector General of Police Tejinder Singh, DIG Sargun Shukla, and Kishtwar SSP Sunny Gupta visited the families of the two men in Kiyar village on Saturday. Local villagers told the senior officers that the SPOs were posted at a Special Operations Group post in Kiyar with four personnel, and a weekly roster had been made last month requiring two officers at a time to join Rashtriya Rifles personnel at the Dharna Temporary Operational Base in Marwah tehsil. Kiyar village lacks mobile phone connectivity and is known as a shadow zone, while the bodies of the two men were found in Marwah tehsil less than 24 hours after they went missing on Thursday.

The Attack And Local Accounts

Villagers stated that the SPOs met some people in the forests who asked where they were from and who would replace them, though the officers did not suspect danger. After reaching Dharna village around 3 pm and having lunch, the men walked toward the mountain ridge TOB ahead of civilians carrying rations on ponies for the Rashtriya Rifles. The group came under fire, prompting the ponywallas to flee and report the incident at the Dharna police post while the armed SPOs went missing. Rachpal's cousin Ajay Parihar noted that Chand survived a 2000 militant attack in Kiyar that killed eight members of the then village defence committee.

Political Reactions And Criticism

Kishtwar MLA Shagun Parihar, representing the BJP, demanded an inquiry and action against the officer who made the deployment roster. She also criticized DIG Shukla for arriving three days after the killings following instructions from the Lieutenant Governor and stated that villagers had to transport the bodies from a Nawapachi health facility to the nearest motorable point in a dumper. Leader of the Opposition and BJP leader Sunil Sharma similarly slammed senior police officers during the Kiyar visit, questioning the operational strategy of giving one SPO a .303 rifle and another an INSAS rifle for the duty and calling the handling extremely incompetent.

Context

Special Police Officers in Jammu and Kashmir are local recruits engaged to assist regular security forces with local intelligence and counter-insurgency operations. Temporary Operational Bases set up by security forces in remote areas often rely on coordination between different local and regular units to secure difficult terrain.