3 min readSrinagarUpdated: Jul 24, 2026 03:54 AM IST
A day after a police head constable was killed in a terror attack in Anantnag, the homes of two local terrorists believed to be active were demolished in the early hours of Thursday.
Similar demolitions had followed the Pahalgam attack in April 2025, when the homes of at least nine suspected terrorists were blown up in different parts of the Valley. On Thursday, the homes of Haroon Ganie and Adil Ahmad Thokar were demolished in the Hasanpora and Bijbehara areas of south Kashmir.
Head constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi, a resident of Budgam in Central Kashmir, who was posted with the Indian Reserve Police and attached with the Special Operations Group, was on Amarnath Yatra duty. The annual pilgrimage is currently suspended because of inclement weather. CCTV footage of the incident shows him being shot at close range by a lone terrorist.
Police sources told The Indian Express that over 2,500 youths have been picked up across the Valley, including more than 700 from Srinagar, over 200 from Budgam, 178 from Baramulla and over a hundred at Ganderbal, besides dozens from the four South Kashmir districts of Anantnag, Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama.
Referring to a Supereme Court order against the demolition of homes of a person accused of a crime, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday cautioned: “I understand the anguish of the police, but the Supreme Court has issued an order stating that summary action of this kind should not be taken. We witnessed a similar situation after the Pahalgam attack and at that time, I had to speak to the Central government to stop this.”
He also spoke out against detention of hundreds of individuals in the Valley, stating that this “will not help improve the situation in J&K but in turn strain it further.”
The chief minister stated that while the police had blown up homes of suspected terrorists after the Pahalgam attack, the investigation showed that those involved in the attack were from outside J&K.
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“This cycle will not end without taking the people along. To some extent, we may reach that point by use of Police, Army and the CRPF but its true end will come when people rise against this violence, like after Pahalgam last year,” Omar said.
Former J&K chief minister and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti also criticised the detentions, stating that while the killing of a police officer in the line of duty is “a heinous and condemnable act,” detaining over a thousand people and demolishing the homes of families of two alleged terrorists amounts to “collective punishment that has no place in a democracy.”
She added that if the Government of India itself maintains that militancy has been reduced to near zero “it must adopt a more humane and lawful approach towards innocent civilians instead of resorting to tit for tat for an entire community.”
Inspector General (Kashmir) J&K Police, V K Birdi could not be reached for comment on the detentions.
