Kishtwar SPOs killed: two J&K police officers found shot dead, weapons missing

The bullet-riddled bodies of two Special Police Officers (SPOs) who went missing in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district were recovered from a forest in Dachhan on Thursday morning (12 November), officials said. Their service weapons were missing. Officials suspect a militant attack, but the police have not yet issued a formal statement or confirmed the involvement of terrorists, The Hindu reported.

The dead were identified as Rashpal Kumar, 45, and Bobby Chand, 57, both residents of Kiyar in Dachhan, The New Indian Express and The Hindu reported. (NDTV gave their ages as 40 and 54, and some outlets spell the first name differently.) Both were SPOs with the J&K Police's Special Operations Group.

The two had gone missing on Wednesday (11 November) while travelling from Kiyar Dachhan to a post in the Marwah sector, where they were to relieve colleagues at a temporary operating base of the Army's 17 Rashtriya Rifles. Gunfire was heard in the area at around 3.30 pm and mobile phone networks in the Marwah area were disrupted, India Today and The Indian Express reported. Their phones were initially reachable and then switched off.

Police, CRPF and Army teams searched the forest through Wednesday night. The bodies were found about 2 km from where the two disappeared, one at around 8 am and the second around 9 am, India Today reported. Sources told NDTV that one SPO had a bullet wound to the head and the other to the back, and that the missing weapons were an INSAS rifle and a .303 rifle. Those details have not been officially confirmed.

A massive search operation has been launched to track down those responsible, India Today reported. The killings came a day after terrorists opened fire on a CRPF checkpoint in south Kashmir's Kulgam district and injured three personnel, as The Indian Idiot reported earlier.