The mutilated bullet-riddled body of constable Javed Ahmad Dar, who had been abducted by terrorists on Thursday evening, was found lying outside Kachdoora village in Shopian district of South Kashmir Friday morning. Police said wounds on the body indicated that he had been tortured to death by the terrorists.

Javed Ahmad Dar was a Jammu and Kashmir Police constable posted in Srinagar. He had come to his native Vehil Chatwatan village to see his ailing mother.

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According to the police, four terrorists of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) abducted him Thursday evening from a chemist shop in the village where he had gone to purchase medicines for his mother. He was taken away in a Santro car.

Hundreds of grieving men and women were present at Dar’s funeral procession in his village.

READ | Abducted J-K Police constable Javed Ahmad Dar found dead 

The police said Dar’s body was found outside the Kachdoora village where security forces had eliminated 13 top terrorists — five of them top commanders of HM and Lashkar-e-Taiyba (LeT) — in an encounter in April. Dar was at that time PSO of Shopian district police chief Shailendra Kumar who had led the operation.

On Thursday evening, eyewitnesses said, four terrorists suddenly appeared outside the chemist shop where Dar was buying medicines, fired a few shots in the air and forcibly took him away in their car.

Security forces have launched a massive hunt in and around Kachdoora village to trace the terrorists.

Reports said pictures of Dar wounded due to torture by the terrorists started appearing on the social media minutes after he was abducted.

Ironically, the gruesome killing of the policeman happened on the day Home Minister Rajnath Singh, accompanied by the National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, was camping in Srinagar to review the security scenario after the imposition of Governor’s Rule on 20 June.

This is the second abduction and murder of a man in uniform in a month after Army soldier Aurangzeb was kidnapped and brutally killed by terrorists in Shopian on 14 June.

A wreath-laying ceremony for the martyred policeman was held at the district police lines in Shopian. SSP Sandeep Choudhary led the police officers and jawans as they paid floral tributes to Dar.

In another incident, terrorists fired at the imam of Hanifa mosque, Mohammad Ashraf Thokar, and seriously injured him in Pulwama of South Kashmir. He was rushed to hospital with multiple bullet injuries and is under observation.

Meanwhile, opposition parties targeted the BJP leadership at the Centre accusing them of being busy splitting the PDP to form government in the state again, instead of taking steps to improve the situation in the Valley.

Former chief minister Omar Abdullah said there could be no condemnation strong enough to denounce this murder. Former PDP minister Naeem Akhtar too condemned the “brutal murder”.