IPS officer injured critically in Kashmir encounter rejoins duty after over 9 months of hospitalisation

Senior IPS officer Amit Kumar, who had suffered life-threatening bullet injury during an encounter in which the Pulwama attack mastermind was killed in February, has rejoined duty as the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Jammu and Kashmir Police after over nine months of hospitalisation, officials said here on Wednesday.

Forty-one-year-old Kumar had received a gunshot wound in the abdomen and underwent five major surgeries at Delhi's premier AIIMS.

He was airlifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) from the Srinagar-based Army hospital in a critical condition five days after the encounter.

The February 18 encounter in the Pinglan area of south Kashmir's Pulwama district had claimed the lives of Major V S Dhondial, three Army personnel and a civilian.

Two Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists, including the mastermind of the February 14 terror attack, were gunned down by the security forces in the encounter.

The Pinglan encounter took place about 12 km from the site where a suicide bomber belonging to the Jaish-e-Mohammed drove his explosive-laden vehicle into a CRPF bus on February 14, killing 40 personnel.

Kumar, then posted as the DIG of South Kashmir range, suffered critical injury in the encounter.

He was discharged from AIIMS in the first week of this month and resumed duty earlier this week.

Kumar, a 2006 batch IPS officer from JK cadre, has been posted as DIG (Police Headquarters), the officials said.