Indian security forces during curfew in Srinagar
Members of the security forces patrol a street littered with rocks thrown by protestors in Srinagar as the city remains under curfew following weeks of violence in Kashmir, August 19, 2016.REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

The Jammu and Kashmir Police have ordered its Special Police Officers not to serve as the personal security officers of the protected persons in the state. The move comes days after an SPO, Adil Bashir, who was an SPO serving in the security team of a PDP MLA, decamped with nine weapons and joined Hizbul Mujahideen outfit.

The incidents of weapon snatching by SPOs and supplying the same to the militants in the recent past has alarmed the state police.

The Additional Director General of Police, Muneer Khan, in a directive to the Superintendents of police said that all the SPOs except those serving as drivers with the protected persons have been withdrawn from the security teams of these important persons.

The senior police officers in the valley have been directed not to deploy any SPO for personal security duties and that the police heads of various zones submit a list of SPOs immediately.

The details of those SPOs who have not reported back to their duties are also to be submitted and their honorarium will not be released, an official handout said.

The low rung police officers or SPOs deployed in the J&K police have faced threats from the militants and their families have also been abducted.

The Hizbul Mujahideen recently warned the locals from joining police forces which resulted in en masse resignations of SPOs when the youth announced their dissociation from the police forces on social media.

Although no official confirmation of the resignations has come, the threats to the SPOs and their families persist.