2 Gujjar Men Abducted By Militants in Pulwama Found Dead

A police official said they had reason to believe that the two men had been working as informants with the Army.

A file photo of a nomadic Gujjar tribe leading his herd of goats through a dried-up riverbed near the Jammu-Srinagar highway.

(Photo: AP)

In the first such incident after the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was revoked, suspected militants on Monday, 26 August, abducted two members of the nomadic Gujjar community from a forested area in Pulwama district.

The two men were later shot dead, a senior police official told The Quint, with both bodies now recovered by a search and rescue party.

Thirty-year-old Manzoor Ahmed of Khonmoh area of Srinagar and 45-year-old Abdul Qadeer Kohli of Rajouri district were abducted by unidentified gunmen from ‘Dhok’, a temporary shelter, from Tral in Pulwama district around 7:30 pm.

“We are investigating, but we have reasons to believe that they had been working (as informants) with the Indian Army.”

Senior police official to<b> The Quint</b>

Stone-Pelters Kill Truck Driver

In a separate incident, two youths were arrested in the early hours of Monday, 26 August, for allegedly throwing stones at a truck in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, killing the driver of the vehicle, named Noor Mohammed Dar.

Normal life has remained paralysed, with shops and schools closed and transport off the roads since 5 August after the BJP-led NDA government abrogated provisions of Article 370 and announced the bifurcation of the state into Union territories.