Lt Gen J S Sandhu and DGP S P Vaid at the press meet. (Express File Photo: Shuaib Masoodi/File)
The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Monday filed a chargesheet against six people, including an Uttar Pradesh resident, for the killing of Station House Officer, Achabal, and five others in June last year.
The chargesheet was filed in the sessions court of Anantnag. Four of the six people named in the chargesheet are still at large.
Stating that the attack on the police team, on June 16, 2017 was orchestrated by militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the police claimed to have killed the suspected mastermind, Bashir Ahmad Wani (alias Lashkar), and another foreign militant, Abu Maz, in an encounter at Batapora, in south Kashmir, on July 1 last year.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by Superintendent of Police Tahir Ashraf, found that the attack involved eight people. Of them two were arrested instantly, while Bashir and Abu Maz were shot dead in the encounter, a police spokesperson said.
The four absconding have been identified as Khurshid Ahmad Gania, Mehraj-ud-din Bangroo, Sahir Ahmad Makroo and Zeenat-ul-Islam.
The two from UP who have been arrested are Sandeep Kumar of Muzaffarnagar district and Mohammad Ashraf Wani. They are in judicial custody. Kumar was arrested in the same encounter in which Bashir was killed, the police said.
In June last year, Achabal SHO, Sub Inspector, Firoz Ahmad Dar and five other police personnel killed when militants ambushed their vehicle at Thajiwara Achabal in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
Elsewhere, the police claimed to have arrested five overground workers of Jaish-e-Mohammad from south Kashmir. Police said the five were involved in grenade attacks in Pampore and Khrew areas of south Kashmir.