Suspended Policeman Accused After Gujjar Youth Mohammad Parvez Shot Dead in Jammu
Srinagar: Under pressure from political parties, the Union territory administration on July 25 suspended two police officials of the district special branch (DSB) and ordered a magisterial inquiry into the shootout in which a Gujjar youth was killed a day earlier in Jammu.
New details about the controversial shootout suggest that the victim Mohammad Parvez was lying in an injured state at the spot near Phallian Mandal, a suburban area of Jammu, on the evening of July 24 for some “15 to 20 minutes” before a team from Satwari police station arrived there.
According to a top official, the DSB team members involved in the shootout had left and the local police arrived and took Parvez to the Government Medical College Jammu where he was declared brought dead.
“They (DSB team) should have shifted him (to hospital),” the official said, wishing to remain anonymous, “He was alive when the local police arrived and evacuated him. We (local police) got to know about it very late. We will investigate whether any authorised protocols were violated”.
The J&K police top brass took serious note of the alleged negligence by the DSB team members identified as head constable Baljinder Singh and constable Pawan Singh who were suspended through an order by the senior superintendent of police (SSP) Jammu on Friday “with immediate effect”.
The order said: “Dy. SP Headquarters Jammu is directed to hold departmental enquiry against them. The Enquiry Officer shall complete the proceedings on merit and submit the findings to DPO Jammu for further necessary action”.
Magisterial enquiry
In accordance with existing rules, the district magistrate (DM) of Jammu also ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident “to ensure a fair and impartial examination of the facts and circumstances leading to the incident”.
An order by the DM said that the sub-divisional magistrate (Jammu South) will conduct the inquiry and submit its report within two weeks “for further necessary action”.
The order however did not specify any reason for their suspension. In its first information report, the police also appear to have retracted from its initial claim that the DSB team was “chasing drug peddlers” on Thursday evening when it came under fire near Phallian Mandal.
According to the first information report (FIR) filed by Satwari police station (No 153/2025) in connection with the shooting on Thursday, a copy of which is with The Wire, a police team “tried to stop” two persons commuting on a scooter near Phallian Mandal “with the intent of checking them”.
The FIR says that the two men pulled out “illegal weapons” and opened fire at the police personnel who “fired back in self defence”, resulting in injuries to one “unknown person” while the second person managed to escape.
A senior police officer in Jammu, wishing anonymity, said that Parvez was “under the scanner” of security agencies and he was being “chased by one team” on Thursday evening while “another team” had set up a checkpoint when the shootout took place.
Brother-in-law’s account
Parvez was accompanied by his brother-in-law Zahoor Ahmad when the shooting took place. Ahmad managed to escape from the spot and broke the news to the family. The aggrieved family has told The Wire that the two had gone out to buy medicines for Ahmad’s mother when the incident took place.
Ahmad, who has gone into hiding, told his family that they were stopped by a group of five to six persons in civil clothes, who were manning the checkpoint near Phallian Mandal.
“Ahmad said that two of them held guns to their heads while the others started beating them. Somehow, Parvez managed to free Ahmad from the group and he ran away. Ahmad said that while was running, he could hear gunshots in the background,” a family member said.
During a meeting with the senior superintendent of police (SSP) Jammu, Joginder Singh, and other police officers on Friday, the aggrieved family alleged that the members of the vigilante groups affiliated with the Hindutva outfits were present at the checkpoint when the shooting took place, a claim rejected by the police.
A community in fear
The tribal Gujjar and Bakkerwal communities, which constitute more than 12% of J&K’s population, have faced an increasing number of attacks by Hindutva groups in Jammu region in the years after the Bhartiya Janta Party came to power at the centre in 2014.
A family member of Parvez had earlier said that he and his brother-in-law initially thought that the members of local ‘gau rakshak’ (cow protector) outfits had set up the checkpoint and they became suspicious that they would be attacked by the group, and had tried to escape upon seeing them.
Rejecting the family’s allegations, the police have booked the slain Parvez and his brother-in-law Ahmad under sections 109 (1) (attempt to murder) and 3(5) (common intention of multiple individuals in furtherance of a crime) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) and section 3/27 of the Arms Act.
The killing prompted massive outrage across Jammu and Kashmir on Friday amid protests by the aggrieved family and calls for impartial probe by J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah, Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti and others.
The killing has revived the anxieties and fears among J&K’s tribal community who have come under a political and security spotlight after the erstwhile state was bifurcated and downgraded into a Union territory in 2019.
Zahid Parwaz Choudhary, a tribal activist from J&K, posted on X: “Parvez’s only fault was that he was a Gujjar, a young man from a leaderless community with no one to speak for him, which is why he was killed. Now, whoever speaks up for him will be charged under PSA or UAPA, while the one who kills will get a medal. If the officer who encountered Parvez is not dismissed and jailed, we will not remain silent.”
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