Jammu, Dec 31 : Jammu and Kashmir’s Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbagh Singh Thursday said that he has no reason to dispute what a senior army official has stated about Lawaypora encounter in which three “militants were killed”, but added that police will “still investigate the claims made by families of slain trio.”
“I have no reason to dispute what the GoC Kilo Force (H S Sahi) has stated about the Lawaypora encounter. The families of two slain youth claimed that their children had gone to submit forms at a University, I want to ask them what were their children doing at encounter site if they had gone to submit a form,” DGP Singh said in reply to a query during a press conference at Jammu. GoC Sahi while addressing the media yesterday had stated that the slain trio had plans to carry out a big strike on the Srinagar-Baramulla highway and that they turned down repeated surrender offers.
He said that at times families, especially parents of the children are not aware about the activities of their wards. “We will still investigate allegations levelled by the families’. If there is anything, we will probe that,” he said. Asked families of slain trio had stated that their wards were students not militants and that police too admitted that slain trio were not listed as militants, the DGP said: “It is not important that every militant is listed with the police. When a person leaves his home to join, he doesn’t tell his parents.”
Pertinently, three youth Aijaz Ahmed Ganai, Ather Mushtaq, and Zubair Ahmed were killed in an encounter at Lawaypora, near Hokerser on Srinagar outskirts yesterday. Soon after their killing, their families staged a protest outside Police Control Room (PCR) Srinagar stating that their “wards were not militants but students.” The families had urged J&K LG Manoj Sinha to probe the encounter at the highest level—(KNO)
