Militant group Hizbul Mujahideen on Sunday said an Indian Police Service officer’s brother has joined its ranks. Shamsul Haq Mengnoo, who went missing on May 22, is among 25 people who have reportedly joined the organisation, according to The New Indian Express.
Mengnoo is seen holding an AK-47 rifle in a photo released by the Hizbul Mujahideen to mark the second death anniversary of its commander Burhan Wani. He has been given the name Burhan Sani. Mengnoo’s elder brother Inamul Haq is an officer from the 2012 batch of the Assam-Meghalaya police cadre. He is now posted in North Guwahati.
“We already had inputs about many youths whose pictures have come out today,” an unidentified police officer told The Indian Express. “For the past two months, they [Hizbul Mujahideen] did not release pictures of their new recruits on social media. Perhaps, they were waiting for this day.”
Shamsul Haq Mengnoo, who is from Draggad village in south Kashmir’s Shopian, was pursuing his bachelors degree in Unani medicine in Srinagar before he went missing.
While most of the new recruits are from south Kashmir, at least four are from north Kashmir – three from Kupwara and one from Sopore.
Irfan Dar, a former Special Police Officer, who went missing with his service rifle from the Pampore police station in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on June 27, has also joined the organisation.
“The militants have now shifted their focus to north Kashmir and they are trying to get more and more boys into the militant fold,” a police officer posted in North Kashmir told The Indian Express. “They are trying to replicate the south experiment in the north and it seems that it is working for them.”
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