3 Lt Cols among 16 army personnel named in FIR for ‘barging into police station, assaulting cops’

Srinagar, May 30: Kupwara Police have registered a case against Army personnel for allegedly entering into a police station on Tuesday night and assaulting policemen, leaving four injured.

While the Defence spokesman based in Srinagar denied any altercation, he admitted there were “minor differences” which were “resolved amicably”.

According to a news report carried by The Indian Express, Kupwara Police have invoked IPC sections relating to rioting, robbery, kidnapping and attempted murder against the soldiers.

Quoting police sources, the report said that the Army personnel were angry over the detention of one of their members and also took away a Head Constable, Ghulam Rasool, with them.

It said the personnel who entered the Kupwara police station were led by an officer, adding that they also snatched the phones of the injured police personnel and Station House Officer Mohammad Ishaq.

After the intervention of senior officers, Head Constable Rasool was released in exchange for the detained soldier, the report added.

The injured policemen — identified as Constables Saleem Mushtaq and Zahoor Ahmad and Special Police Officers Imtiyaz Ahmad Malik and Rayees Khan — were taken to the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar. Doctors said they are in a stable condition.

Quoting sources, the report said the FIR registered at Kupwara police station, invokes the following IPC sections — 186 (voluntary obstruction of public servant in discharge of public duty), 332 (voluntarily causing harm in order to deter public servant from doing duty), 307 (attempt to murder), 342 (wrongful confinement of a person), 147 (rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence in prosecution of common object), 392 (robbery), 397 (use of deadly weapon during a robbery or dacoity) and 365 (kidnapping and abduction with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person).

Earlier in a statement, a Defence spokesperson said: “Reports of an altercation between police and Army personnel and beating up therein of police personnel are misfounded and incorrect. Minor differences between the police personnel and a Territorial Army unit on an operational matter have been amicably resolved.”