High-ranking police officer assassinated in India-administered Kashmir
Srinagar, India, Oct 4 (EFE).- A high-ranking police officer of India’s Jammu and Kashmir region was found killed, triggering an investigation whether he was assassinated by militants and causing shockwaves even as Indian Home Minister Amit Shah is set to visit the disputed region on Tuesday.
The corpse of Hemant Kumar Lohia, the direct general of prisons in the regional police, was on Monday night found at a friend’s house with “burn injuries on his body and his throat slit,” a police officer from the Jammu district, where the incident took place, told EFE on the condition of anonymity.
“The initial examination of the scene suggests this as a murder case, the domestic helper with the officer is absconding and a search for him has been started,” the additional director general of Jammu police, Mukesh Singh, said in a statement.
The authorities from the territory of Jammu and Kashmir have not clarified if this was an insurgent attack or an isolated killing, even as the domestic help has been named as the prime suspect and described by the police as aggressive and suffering from depression.
The incident comes after a series of attacks in the region in recent days, including targeted killings of the Hindu minority and immigrants as well as security forces.
On Tuesday, a group of insurgents fired at a bank manager in the Baramulla district, who is a native of an adjacent region, although he escaped unhurt.
In a separate incident, one member of the security forces was killed and another injured in an attack in the Pulwama district, authorities said on Monday.
On Sep. 28, the city of Udhampur in the Jammu region witnessed two explosions in buses, without any casualties, although the attack spread panick amid the mostly Hindu population.
Authorities in India-administered Kashmir have strengthened security deployment in several areas, and on Tuesday suspended mobile phone services and internet in parts of the region ahead of the three-day visit by Home Minister Amit Shah.
Shah is set to participate in two public events in the region as part of his first visit to Jammu and second to Kashmir after the Indian government revoked the semi-autonomous status of the region in 2019, while imposing unprecedented restrictions and arresting thousands of people.
Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region. has been the cause of hostilities between India and Pakistan since 1947, when it was divided between the two countries, which have fought several wars over it.
Since 1989, the region has witnessed an armed separatist insurgency against New Delhi’s rule, with thousands of people being killed in violence. India accuses Pakistan of backing the insurgency, although Islamabad has denied this. EFE
sa-daa/ia
