Overview
- The officer, identified as 55-year-old Special Police Officer Bashir Ahmed, left his Trigam picket to walk home around 7:00 a.m. on Thursday and did not arrive, prompting his family to alert authorities.
- Police say Ahmed was carrying his issued Self-Loading Rifle and reportedly a magazine when he disappeared, creating an urgent security concern over the unaccounted weapon.
- Senior police and multiple security teams have launched a large-scale search operation that is combing forest patches, transit routes and nearby villages under on-site supervision.
- Investigators are pursuing three main lines of inquiry—accidental injury in rain-soaked, steep terrain, kidnapping by attackers, or voluntary desertion—and officials say there is no public evidence so far linking the case to militants.
- The case raises broader local concerns because SPOs are locally recruited auxiliaries who have in past incidents sometimes left with service arms, and an untraced rifle could be used in attacks or crime which officials say increases urgency of the search.