An Army officer was abducted and killed by suspected militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian on Tuesday. The lieutenant-rank officer’s body bore bullet injuries and was found in Shopian’s Hermain area, PTI reported on Wednesday.
The soldier has been identified as Umer Fayaz from Kulgam. He was in the infantry and posted in Jammu’s Akhnoor region. Fayaz had been commissioned in December last year. The police said he had gone to attend a cousin’s wedding in Shopian, but had been abducted by five or six militants and shot dead later. The officer was unarmed.
This was the first time he had taken leave since joining the Army’s 2 Rajputana Rifles unit. He was part of the 129th batch of cadets from the National Defence Academy in Pune.
An official of the Army said they had received the news and were conducting an investigation. “The Army salutes the braveheart and stands by the bereaved family in this hour of tragedy,” the official said. “We are committed to bring the perpetrators of this heinous act of terror to justice.”
Major General BS Raju, who is the general officer in command of the Victor Force that handles counter-terrorism operations in South Kashmir, has directed all his units in the region to find the killers, PTI reported.
Defence Minister Arun Jaitley also reacted to the killing.
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