Former special officer (SPO) Fayaz Ahmad of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police force, along with his wife, was shot dead by unidentified militants in Pulwama’s Hariparigram Awantipora on Sunday, 27 June. A day after Ahmad and his wife passed away, their daughter too, who had sustained critical injuries, breathed her last.
WHAT HAPPENED?
The Kashmir Zone Police said that militants barged into the house of the SPO and fired indiscriminately.
Ahmad and his wife succumbed to the bullet injuries in a hospital, late on Sunday night, hours before their daughter, who died on Monday morning.
IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar, according to ANI, said said that apparently the gunmen were "foreign terrorists" and that they were suspecting Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) involvement.
The IGP further elaborated:
“Jammu and Kashmir Police have been working at forefront of anti-terrorist operations. Last night, two terrorists seem to be foreign terrorists, fired on one of our SPOs. When his wife and daughter came to rescue him, they fired on them too.”
Stating that the Ahmed and his family were taken to the hospital where they succumbed to their injuries, Kumar said: "We are saddened by this incident. We will identify and neutralise them (the militants) soon. There is a movement of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in this area and it must be them."
MORE DETAILS
The area has been cordoned off and a search process is underway, the Kashmir Zone Police said in a tweet.
J&K LG TWEETS HIS CONDOLENCES
"I strongly condemn brutal terrorist attack on SPO Fayaz Ahmad and his family at Awantipora. This is an act of cowardice and perpetrators of violence will be brought to justice very soon. My deepest condolences to the family of martyr and prayers for the recovery of injured," the office of the Lieutenant Governor of J&K tweeted.
J&K Political Parties Express Condolences
Mainstream political parties in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, 28 June, condemned the killing of the SPO with Nation Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah calling it a 'dastardly and cowardly' attack.
PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti stated that 'no words are strong enough to condemn the cowardly act'.
Peoples Conference (PC) chairman Sajad Lone said the news of the killing was 'extremely distressing' and called the perpetrators 'thugs of violence'.
BJP's J&K spokesman Altaf Thakur condemned the attack as cowardly and barbaric, adding that it 'is nothing but a pure form of terrorism.'
"The act deserves the strongest condemnation and that those behind the act will meet the same fate. What was the fault of the innocent wife and daughter of the policeman? The killing (of) women is (in) no way bravery, but a pure cowardly attack which deserves the highest form of condemnation," reported Greater Kashmir, quoting Thakur
Senior CPI(M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami said killing unarmed civilians cannot be justified in any way.
"Killing innocents, including women, is highly condemnable and such incidents have no place in the civilised world. Attacking civilians by the combatants is an act of cowardice and must be condemned by all in one voice," reported Greater Kashmir, quoting Tarigami.
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