Slain Army officer Lt Ummer Fayaz.
Srinagar, May 11
Militants belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen may have killed young Kashmiri Army officer Lt Ummer Fayaz and an INSAS rifle snatched from cops could have been used in the crime, the Jammu and Kashmir Police suspect.A senior police official also said on Thursday that Fayaz’s body did not bear any torture marks while adding that the post-mortem report is awaited.“We have conducted preliminary investigations. It does point out to (the involvement of) a module of Hizbul Mujahideen active in Shopian,” Inspector General of Police Kashmir SJM Gillani said.Police have found two empty cartridges of an INSAS rifle at the place where Fayaz was shot dead by the militants in Shopian.“We had two incidents of weapon-snatching in south Kashmir recently. We have leads that the Kulgam snatching was carried out by Lashkar militants while Hizb militants were involved in weapon-snatching at Shopian court complex (on May 2). So it could be one of those weapons,” he said.Gillani said the post mortem report was awaited but added that there were no torture marks on Fayaz’s body.“The doctors and police officers who examined the body did not find any torture marks,” he said.Fayaz had gone to attend the wedding of the daughter of his maternal uncle at Batapura, about 74 kms from here, from where he was abducted by the militants at around 10 pm on Tuesday. His bullet riddled body was found yesterday morning.On his first leave since joining the Army, he had reached Batapura from Akhnoor in Jammu region where he was posted with 2 Rajputana Rifles.Hailing from Kulgam district, Fayaz was commissioned in the Army in December last year.The Army has vowed “to bring the perpetrators of this heinous act of terror to justice”. — PTI
On leave, Lieutenant from J&K shot
Ummer Fayaz, in Shopian for a cousin’s wedding, kidnapped by militants and killed
Soldiers pay tributes to slain Army officer Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz Parray in Shopian district. Photos: Mohammad Amin War/PTI
Samaan Lateef
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, May 10
Slain Army officer Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz Parray’s grieving mother surrounded by mourners. Photo: Mohammad Amin War/PTI
Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz Parray, 23, of Sarson-Yaripora village in Kulgam was kidnapped by suspected militants from the house of his maternal uncle in Shopian district, 60 km from here, late last night. His bullet-riddled body was found in Harmen area this morning, 3 km from the house. The autopsy report showed bullets in the head, stomach and chest.Edit: A dastardly act“In a dastardly act, unidentified militants on Tuesday night abducted and killed a young, unarmed Army officer, Lt Ummer Fayaz,” Srinagar-based defence spokesperson Col Rajesh Kalia said. Fayaz had come home only last week for the marriage of his cousin sister at Batapura village in Shopian. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)Described by top Army officials as a promising officer, he was commissioned in the Army’s Rajputana Rifles Regiment in December last year and was on leave for the first time. He was to return to his unit in Akhnoor area of Jammu on May 25.Sources said two masked men barged into his uncle’s house and asked Fayaz, who was unarmed, to accompany them. Terrified, his family did not inform the police about the incident, hoping he would return unharmed.A student of Jawahar Navodya Vidyalaya, Anantnag, Fayaz cleared the National Defence Academy (NDA) examination in 2012. After three years of training at Pune, he spent a year at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, and was commissioned as Lieutenant on December 10, 2016. He leaves behind his father, who runs a small fruit business, mother and two younger sisters — Asma and Uzma. The officer’s body was brought to his native village Sarson for burial with military honours. “Azadi is fine, but killing an innocent young boy is shameful,” said an angry Mushtaq Ahmad, one of the hundreds of mourners.The slain officer was to go for the Young Officer’s Course in September for elevation as platoon and company commander, Army officials said. A member of NDA’s hockey team, he was an excellent volleyball player too. “The Army salutes the braveheart, stands by the bereaved family in this hour of tragedy and commits to bring the perpetrators of this heinous act of terror to justice,” Col Kalia said.“I assure the family that the perpetrators of this heinous crime and dastardly act will not be spared,” the GOC-in-chief of the South Western Command, Lt Gen Abhay Krishnan, said. Calling it a watershed moment, he said the killing would “turn the tide against terrorism.”Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and former CM Omar Abdullah also condemned the killing. “We condemn the heinous and barbaric act, a manifestation of extremist ideology… Killing of a fellow Kashmiri Sunni Muslim is against the tenets of Islam,” state BJP spokesperson Brig (retd) Anil Gupta said.
