Another sarpanch shot dead in J&K

Unidentified gunmen killed a sarpanch (village head) in Baramulla on Friday evening, three days after the district went to the polls.

Ghulam Mohammed Bedar, 65, was killed in Hygam village hours after he was kidnapped by unknown gunmen from his house. Bedar’s body was recovered from an orchard.

“He had been shot twice. We are probing the killing,” the Superintendent of Police, Sopore, said.

Survived by five daughters, Bedar is the second sarpanch to be killed in Kashmir since the Assembly elections began.

On November 30, suspected militants shot dead a National Conference sarpanch in Shopian and a day later, another was shot at around the same area. Earlier in October, an unidentified gunman shot dead the younger brother of a former sarpanch, whose father had also been shot dead by suspected militants during the Parliamentary elections earlier this year.

According to locals, people in Baramulla blocked the national highway to protest the killing.

Bedar, according to his neighbours, was also a poet and social worker.