PSO’s And Rifle Snatching

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PSO’s

A day after the union Home Ministry announced enhancement in the stipend of PSO’s working in Jammu and Kashmir government, one of the serving PSO at the official residence of Member of Legislative Assembly Ijaz Ahmad Mir decamped with 6 rifles and a pistol form the guard room.

This has been one of the most shocking incidents of recent times that a PSO ran away with so many rifles from the heart of Srinagar.

 

 

  Although the security forces laid the siege of the area to apprehend the PSO, however, all the efforts went down the drain after PSO-Adil Bashir’s picture went viral on social media while posing with his colleagues along with the rifles stolen from the MLA’s residence.

Thus, it marked Adil’s official announcement of joining the militant ranks after ditching his own force. Adil was reportedly one of the trusted security guards of Mir and hails from his constituency. He was recruited less than a year back and was staying close to Mir at his official residence.

While this has not only sent the shock waves across the security and intelligence apparatus of state government, the state government has even failed to stop this trend.

The first incident of this kind happened in 2015 when Naseer Ahmad Panidth a top militant commander who was earlier serving as PSO to PDP leader Mohammad Altaf Bukhari decamped with services rifles and turned the most wanted militant.

He was later killed in an encounter with security forces.  Pandith, however set the precedence for many others and so far nearly two dozen incidents of such kind took place though most of them in south Kashmir.

While in conflict zones the rival forces are always working hard to infiltrate into the enemy sides, in Kashmir militants seems to have successfully managed it in present times.

Earlier, it was only the police and other security and intelligence agencies who managed to sent their loyal among the militants to trace them.

  As of the militants seems to have a strong network of its men among the security forces who don’t only ditch the government, however, also help militancy to aid weapons. If the trend continues to prevail it will have serious and more dangerous consequences where the government will find no exit.

The SPO’s have been one of the instrumental irregular forces that wreaked havoc to the militancy with its strong source network and daring actions. However, their services were never acknowledged and continued to live the pity and miserable lives economically.

They have also not been professionally trained with no proper counselling to join the force. Forget about the proper screening during recruitment. As the PSO’s are recruited and are posted at vital positions as security guards it poses the severe challenges for government.

Only the time will tell how the government will stop this growing trend of PSOs joining militant ranks after decamping with weapons.  Following the rise in militant recruitments across the valley and the shortage of weapons, the trend may see a steep rise in coming times.

The intelligence and security agencies have already warned that shortage of weapons has put them under huge pressure and rifle snatching is confirming it. It is said that in case the weapons to the militants are available in good quality there are so many youth waiting to join the ranks.

 

 

 

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