Search launched for Army jawan who went missing from Budgam village

Srinagar, Mar 9: The Army and the police have launched a joint search for a soldier who went missing from his village in central Kashmir’s Budgam district early this week, officials said on Wednesday.

Sameer Ahmad Malla of the Army’s Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JAKLI) regiment went missing from his Lokipora village of Khag on Monday. He was visiting home on leave to be with his wife on the birth of their second child, the officials said.

He is currently posted in Jammu.Malla was in the news four years ago when his role was investigated for allegedly driving his company commander Major Leetul Gogoi and a local girl to a hotel here, officials said.

Major Gogoi, who was in the centre of the 2017 “human shield” controversy, suffered the ignominy of reduction in seniority and exit from Kashmir for “fraternising” with a local woman in 2018.