Government forces in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) on Thursday killed two former police officers in a gun battle after the men had reportedly deserted the force to join rebels in the disputed territory.
The area’s Inspector general of police, Danish Rana, said the two men had abandoned the force to join the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group.
“We were on hot pursuit against them. Today we eliminated them in a joint operation with the army,” Rana told AFP.
Both were said to be former rebels who had been recruited as Special Police Officers (SPOs), one in 1999 and the other in 2006.
SPOs are mostly former rebels who have surrendered or served time in prison, and are mostly used in counter-insurgency work.
They are paid less than regular officers and there have been previous cases of them deserting the force — earlier this year an SPO guarding the residence of a local minister deserted his post to join the rebel group Hizbul Mujahideen.
Rana said the brief gun battle took place in the mountainous area of Doda, 175 kilometres southeast of India-held Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar.