Even two days after the bodies of two special police officers (SPOs), bearing bullet wounds, were found in a forest area of the mountainous Kishtwar district, the J&K Police have yet to issue an official statement on the circumstances surrounding their killing, leaving several questions unanswered.The two SPOs, identified as Rashpal Kumar and Bobby Chand, were travelling between Kiyar and Deharna villages in Dachhan-Marwah when they went missing on Wednesday. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found on Thursday morning, following which a massive search operation was launched. Both Kumar and Chand belonged to Kiyar village.There is growing anxiety among locals and those closely monitoring the developments over how the sequence of events leading to the killings unfolded. While the region where the incident took place is known to have a presence of Pakistani terrorists who take shelter in forest areas, the police’s silence and failure to issue an official statement have raised several questions.The absence of an official police account has also prompted questions from political leaders, particularly those from the BJP.Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the J&K Assembly and MLA from Padder-Nagseni in Kishtwar district, Jattvibeil Sharma, said people were agitated over the incident, as Kiyar village has only 30-40 households.“There have been killings of 12 persons, including Hindu SPOs, in recent years. The area also has a traditional route used by terrorists. Locals are questioning why the two SPOs were being sent from Kiyar to Deharna without sophisticated weapons through a dense forest area,” he said.The MLA from the Kishtwar Assembly constituency, Shagun Parihar, alleged that threats had been issued to villagers for a long time, but the police had taken no action against those responsible. She also alleged that an insider was leaking information about the movement of the SPOs in the region.A similar communication gap was reported in July this year, when a resident, Arif Hussain, was killed in a firing incident in which two Special Operations Group (SOG) personnel were also injured.Although the police version was subsequently shared through senior officials, a detailed official account was not immediately made public, causing confusion among residents over the incident. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was later constituted to investigate the case.Former Director General of Police, J&K, SP Vaid, told The Tribune that during his tenure as police chief, detailed statements regarding major incidents across the erstwhile state were issued through a dedicated media wing of the police.“A handout about such incidents was issued in the evening,” he said.Interestingly, the police in the Kashmir region have also chosen to remain silent on major incidents and prefer not to release official information.Until sometime ago, the Kashmir Police would be among the first to announce the commencement of an encounter or report any terror-related incident. Even after the Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 people were killed by terrorists, no statement was issued by the police, leading to speculation about the number of casualties.It is the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps that mostly issues statements regarding encounters in the region.