Punjab on alert after cop thrashed by men in army uniform

The border districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur are on high alert after a senior Punjab police officer and two others were allegedly abducted by five men in army fatigues and beaten up before being released near Pathankot.

Salwinder Singh, a superintendent of police in Gurdaspur, has claimed that he and his friend and one of his junior colleagues were on their way to Gurdaspur from Pathankot late on Thursday night when the men signaled them to stop near Dinanagar.

Police have stepped up security after Singh’s claim that the attackers were in army uniform after the terrorist attack in July last year when heavily-armed men in army fatigues had sprayed bullets on a moving bus and stormed the Dinanagar police station, killing six persons, including an SP, and injuring eight others in Gurdaspur district bordering Pakistan.

Singh is being questioned by officers of the Intelligence Bureau.

Body identified

The body which was found near Kathlore bridge, 35 km from Pathankot, earlier on Friday has been identified as that of Ekagar Singh of Phulpur village in Narot Jaimal Singh block. The bridge is barely 15 km from the India-Pakistan border.

It is believed that the men, who abducted the SP and two others, first snatched Ekagar’s Innova who was on his way back from Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir. They slit his throat and dumped his body near the bridge before fleeing.

The Innova has also been recovered just two kilometers away from the body.

Villagers from the area had started a protest at the time of filing of this report on the road and the police are trying to pacify the crowd.

Senior police officers, including inspector general of police Lok Nath Angra, have reached the spot where the body was found and combing operations are on in the Kathlore area.

Thrashed, thrown out

Salwinder said as they stopped their vehicle, all the five men barged inside and started beating them. He claimed that one of them took the driver’s seat and drove towards Pathankot. After a while, Singh was pushed out of the vehicle and his two companions were driven away by the men.

Later, the men pushed one person out of the vehicle near Pathankot and slit the throat of the third man, who has been identified as Rajesh Kumar, was dropped near Damtal hills on the Punjab-Himachal border after he pretended to be dead. Police said the vehicle was recovered near Dhira village.

Kumar is undergoing treatment in a private hospital in Pathankot and police believe he could reveal more information about the men who abducted them.