Shamsul Haq Mengnoo joined the Hizbul Mujahideen on May 22 (Representational)
When a picture of 25-year-old Shamsul Haq Mengnoo holding an AK-47 rifle went viral on social media in Kashmir on Sunday, shockwaves were felt all the way in Assam. Policemen and their families could not believe that the brother of an IPS Officer posted in their midst had joined the terror group Hizbul Mujahideen.
Shamsul's elder brother Inam Ul Mengnoo is a 2012 batch Assam-Meghalaya cadre IPS officer now posted as a Commandant in the Assam police Commando Battalion at Mandakata, North Guwahati.
According to the information accompanying the photograph, Shamsul Haq Mengnoo joined the Hizbul Mujahideen on May 22, the day he went missing. He has been given the code name "Burhan Sani".
Shamsul was pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Unani Medicine and Surgery from a government college at Zakura on the outskirts of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir when he went missing. He hails from Draggud village of south Kashmir's Shopian district.
While police sources in Srinagar confirmed the information about Shamsul joining Hizbul as true, the administration hasn't issued any official statement so far.
"Normally what happens here, people who join militancy make that announcement by circulating their photos brandishing guns on the social media, he has also done the same," a police official told NDTV requesting not to be named.
Inam Ul Mengnoo was not available for comment.