The route from the camp at Kiyar to the Army post at Dharna-Marwah looks short on paper. In Dachhan it runs through forest, ridges and long stretches of silence. On Wednesday, Babi Chand (57) and Rashpal Kumar (45), Special Police Officers attached to the local Special Operations Group, set out from their camp toward that Army post and went missing.
By evening, the search was joint, involving police, Army and CRPF. Their bullet-riddled bodies were recovered early Thursday, one around 8 am and the other around 9 am, according to Kishtwar MLA Shagun Parihar. Their service weapons were not found. Two men who left carrying rifles came back without them.
The same day, a second strike
The Kishtwar story did not unfold alone. At around 2:15 pm on Wednesday, motorcycle-borne assailants fired on CRPF personnel at a checkpoint in Nowpora Akhran, Kulgam, and fled. Three personnel were injured, and a cordon-and-search operation ran for nearly 17 hours. Reports said the injured jawans fired back and chased the attackers.
One attack in the Valley and one in the Chenab forests, on the same afternoon, are hundreds of kilometres apart. Whether a single hand planned both is unproven, and the investigation has not said so. Even without a link, the timing carries a message: the security grid is being tested in two very different terrains at once.
The Pattern Kishtwar Already Knows
Dachhan has seen this before. In an earlier attack in the same belt, militants killed one SPO, injured another and took both their guns. In November 2024, the Kashmir Tigers, a Jaish-e-Mohammad offshoot, claimed the killing of two Village Defence Guards in Kishtwar’s forests. This year’s Operation Trashi-I killed several Jaish militants in the Chatroo belt, though their commander Saifullah escaped one early encounter.
The forests were never cleared of danger. They were only contested.
How the Government Is Responding
The political reaction came quickly, and it was divided. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge condemned the killings and said India stands united against terrorism. J&K Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma of the BJP said the old terror-supporting network had not been fully dismantled. Parihar blamed Pakistan and said she wants to “take down four” for these two. On the Kulgam attack, Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary condemned the violence and called the loss of statehood and special status the biggest loss for J&K.
In the coverage reviewed, a detailed statement from the Centre or the Lieutenant Governor on these two incidents had not yet surfaced. That absence may only be a matter of timing, but the gap is noticeable. Policing and security in the Union Territory sit with the Centre’s representatives, and these men served under that structure.
Where the Investigation Stands
Officials say the missing weapons raise suspicion of a possible militant angle. Search teams, including dog squads, are combing the forest. No arrests, no claim of responsibility and no confirmed motive have been reported. The post-mortem findings and the route the men took will matter, since investigators need to establish where the ambush happened and who knew their movements.
The motives
Rifles vanishing with their owners looks like militancy, but Kishtwar has taught a harder lesson recently. In October, an SPO went missing with his service weapon and was found dead in a forest pit. Police later arrested a man and his son, with a land dispute suspected as the motive. That case was a local feud and had nothing to do with terror.
This does not mean the same applies here. Two men shot together point toward an organised attack more than a personal quarrel. But an honest inquiry has to test every possibility, because a wrong label could send the search in the wrong direction.
The Vulnerability
J&K has around 32,000 SPOs, an auxiliary force that supports the regular police in intelligence, guarding and counter-insurgency work. They are local men, known to their neighbours, paid modestly and often moving on foot between a camp and a post with no armoured cover. When militants want weapons and a message, such men without protection are the easiest target.
The families of Babi Chand and Rashpal Kumar are not asking about statehood debates or strategy. They are waiting for two bodies to come home and for an answer to a plain question: why were two men on a forest track, carrying rifles, without more protection?
That question, more than any statement, is what the Kishtwar investigation owes them.