The killing of a tribal youth allegedly by Jammu and Kashmir police took a dramatic turn on Sunday when deputy chief minister Surinder Choudhary accused the police’s special branch of roaming the streets in civilian clothes with weapons and shooting civilians, and said the cops were running drug cartels.
Lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha’s administration has been facing mounting pressure to take action on the police since a 21-year-old Jammu resident, Mohammad Parvaiz, was allegedly killed by cops in a fake gunfight on Thursday night.
The police initially claimed Parvaiz was a drug peddler. However, they launched an investigation and reportedly suspended two cops on the charge of killing the youth belonging to the tribal Gujjar community.
“The world knows Jammu and Kashmir police is not under the Omar Abdullah government. It is under LG sahab. I want to tell LG sahab that Jammu and Kashmir is not a territory of (fake) encounters. We used to hear that (real) encounters were taking place, (we know) they happened, and our brave policemen had done them,” Choudhary told the media after meeting the family in Jammu on Sunday.
“Who has given this police power to roam in civil dress, kill civilians and
shoot young boys? Omar Abdulah’s government will not tolerate this.”
Choudhary added: “If (the police) you don’t like somebody’s face, you put two packets in his pocket and say he is a drug peddler. The biggest racket is run by the police.”