Two days after bodies of three men were found in a waterfall in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, two minor boys of tribal community have gone missing from the district.
The teenage boys Deen Mohammad, 15, and his nephew Rehmat Ali, 12, have gone missing from the Rajbagh area of the district, police said.
The duo was last seen in Rajbagh area on February 27, where they had gone to graze their cattle, they said.
Authorities have now launched a search operation to find the two missing teens.
Despite extensive search by their families in the nearby areas, including Billawar, Basohli and Punjab, there has been no trace of them.
Their sudden disappearance has left their families in deep distress, especially given the tense atmosphere prevailing in the district over the past few months.
Police have registered an FIR and an investigation has been launched to trace these two missing boys.
The Kathua district has in the past few days witnessed a string of mysterious disappearances of locals causing tension in the area.
Their disappearance comes just days after the bodies of three local residents were found at a waterfall by security forces, three days after they went missing.
Three civilians Yogesh Singh, 32, Darshan Singh, 40, and Varun Singh, 15, went missing on March 05 while traveling to a wedding in Lohai Malhar. They were found dead in the Billawar area of Kathua three days after they went missing. The bodies were found in a deep gorge on Saturday.
A probe has been ordered to investigate the deaths.
Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh has pointed to the terror angle in the death of the trio.
Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan travelled to Jammu yesterday and chaired a high level meeting to formulate a strategy to counter terrorism in Jammu region.
Residents of the Bani-Billawar areas of the district have become restive following the killings.
The area observed a shutdown yesterday and people staged protests and demanded a thorough probe into the incident.