The infighting among top police officers in Jammu and Kashmir has reached the Union Territory’s top administration with a senior IPS officer writing to the chief secretary seeking action against the police chief and four other officers for allegedly endangering his life.

Official sources said Basant Rath, an IGP-rank officer who has often fallen foul of those in high places because of his unconventional style of functioning, last week wrote to chief secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam requesting a probe into WhatsApp messages that Rath has found “disturbing”.

Some of the screenshots, which are said to have been attached to the letter, refer to Rath as a “mad man”, someone who “damages us more than an enemy” and a “serious threat (that) needs to be capped and arrested”. The Telegraph could not ascertain the veracity of these messages. Rath was not available for comment on the purported letter.

The sources said Rath had written that he was “worried” about his “safety and reputation” because of the “conversations” in the screenshots. He has urged the chief secretary to “hold an enquiry and recommend to the higher authorities for necessary legal action against these officers if these screenshots have any evidentiary value”.

Rath had last month provoked DGP Dilbag Singh into a verbal brawl on social media by appearing to insinuate that the police chief might be owning benami land.

The sources said Rath had written to the chief secretary that he had received the screenshots from an “unknown number” that had images of messages that “seem” to have been sent by the DGP, four other police officers, four journalists and a paramilitary force doctor. Rath has named all the 10 persons in the letter, according to the sources. The other four police officers include an IGP-rank officer and three senior superintendents of police.

On June 25, Rath had lodged a police complaint against the DGP and expressed apprehensions about his “life” and “liberty”.