SRINAGAR: Militants attacked a guard post at the residence of a retired judge in Anantnag district’s Anchidora on Tuesday evening, injuring two policemen and making off with their rifles.

The judge, Justice Muzaffar Attar, was not home at the time.

“The attackers fled with four self-loading rifles,” an official manning the police control room at Anantnag said, adding that a search operation was launched immediately after the attack.

One of the policemen is in a critical state.

There have been a number of weapon-snatching incidents across occupied Kashmir in recent times. On May 3, suspected militants barged into a police post at a court complex in Shopian district and made off with five service rifles. Two days earlier, five policemen and two bank guards travelling in a J&K Bank van were killed – and their rifles stolen – in neighbouring Kulgam district.

In a video released last October, former Hizb-ul Mujahideen commander Zakir Rashid Bhat had told Kashmiri youth that they could become a part of the militant outfit simply by snatching firearms from security forces.

“Many brothers have taken to the way of jihad. They have snatched weapons and joined us. Any brother who wants to join us should snatch weapons,” he had said. – Hindustan Times