Woman cop declared "dead", found alive

JAMMU: It could happen only in Jammu and Kashmir. A woman constable, declared dead two years ago, has been found alive in a migrant camp on the outskirts of Jammu -- living with her Hindu paramour.

Nelofar, a  constable with the Jammu and Kashmir police, was reported missing March 2006 by her family which alleged that she had  disappeared -- and, in all probability, had been killed by the police for she "knew some secrets about her superiors".
      
According to police records, Nelofar was sent to Badami Bagh cantonment in Srinagar for frisking duty from where she went missing.
      
Investigations were launched. The family alleged that she had been killed by the police. A grave was also identified where, it was said, she lay buried. The body was exhumed and it was presumed that the body was of Nelofar because of the unrecognizable state of the body.
      
Now, it appears that it was actually the body of an unidentified woman fished out of the Dal Lake a few days prior to the Nelofar episode grabbing the headlines in Kashmir's newspapers. But the immediate conclusion drawn then was that the body was that of Nelofar.
      
The state human rights commission asked the crime branch of the state police to investigate the matter and ascertain as to what happened to Nelofar and how.

But the police were able to find Nelofar living with her colleague Deepak Kumar, who works as a head constable in the intelligence wing of the state police on Sunday. Both are reported to have married and were living together in Nagrota.
      
It is the second marriage for Nelofar who is already married to a businessman in Kashmir. And there hangs the tale of the "dead" cop.
      
An official of the crime branch said that further investigations into the case are in progress. Nelofar will be questioned about "her unauthorized absence" and why she didn't report for duty after having learned that she had been declared dead.

Nelofar has been sent to Srinagar on Monday morning. She would be produced before the state human rights commission, the official said.