A day before his arrest for his links with terrorists,  the decorated Jammu and Kashmir police officer and Deputy Superintendent of Police Devinder Singh was seen escorting diplomats from over a dozen countries including the United States who had visited the state as government guests to see for themselves the efforts which have been made by government to normalize the situation.

But with his arrest on Saturday last with two terrorists of Pakistan-based terror group Hizb-ul-Mujahideen,  the decorated police officer will be dealt as a “terrorist” and chances are that he will be stripped off of his President’s Gallantry Medal award, agencies said quoting official sources. Singh was arrested on Srinagar-Jammu highway with two terrorists — Naveed Babu and Altaf — after receiving a tip-off that some terrorists were going towards Srinagar-Jammu highway.  They were reportedly travelling to Delhi. The two Hizbul terrorists arrested along with Singh have been identified as Naveed Babu and Asif Rather. The trio was nabbed by a J&K police party led by South Kashmir Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Atul Goel. Both the terrorists are from Sophian. Two AK-47 rifles and some hand grenades were found in the Maruti car used by them.

Singh was currently posted at the Srinagar International Airport. Earlier he was in the anti-hijacking squad of J&K police, and before that as part of the special operations group when the elite force was established. He was posted as an inspector in the SOG, and due to his successful anti-terror operations, he had got an out-of-turn promotion as DSP.

But later he was removed from SOG after there were allegations of extortions against him, and he was suspended from services for some time. After that, he was posted at the police control room and then the anti-hijacking unit.

According to reports, later the police party raided Singh’s house in Shivpora near army headquarters in Badamibagh and recovered one AK-47 rifle, two pistols and three hand grenades. His ancestral house at Tral in Pulwama district was also raided by police. According to police sources, the DSP had taken a leave of four days from Saturday on the pretext of visiting Jammu. Another AK-47 was recovered based on Naveed Babu’s information.

—India Legal Bureau