KL Report
SRINAGAR
Over 300 people mostly youth from Jammu and Kashmir implicated in anti-national cases are languishing in different jails of India. Scores of people from Kashmir Valley have also been languishing in different jails like Kot-Balwal, Kathau, Udhumpur and other jails of Jammu province. Twenty-eight Kashmiri’s are serving life imprisonment and most of them are spending their days and nights in Asia’s largest Tihar Jail.
Supreme Court lawyer Professor Bhim Singh believes that most of the prisoners from Jammu and Kashmir locked up in various jails of India have been implicated in false cases and majority of them are under trials.
“It is not only youth from Kashmir but from different parts of Jammu province who have been implicated in false cases and are shut in narrow and dark cells. In Varanasi jail alone, there are 15 youth all from Rajouri who are languishing there from past many years,” Singh informed CSN.
He said that Jammu and Kashmir youth have been put in Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Naini, Mumbai, Alahabad, Madhya Pradesh, Rajhstan, Vadodara, Banglore, Jaipur, Lucknow and other jails. “I had filed a petition in Supreme Court seeking the status and details about the actual number of people belonging to Jammu and Kashmir who have been languishing in different jails of India. I have not received any official response yet but being in touch with some of the detainees, I can tell you with authority that there are more than 300 State youth who are locked up in Indian jails,” he said adding that most of the Kashmiri people detained for allegedly involving in anti-India activities have been lodged either in Tihar, Mumbai or Naine Jails.
“There are 25 Kashmir youth lodged in Mumbai jail, 15 youth from Rajouri are in Naine jail, 12 more Kashmiri’s are in Gujrat jails and so on,” Singh said adding that has been pleading the cases of some 1300 foreigners out of 750 are either from Pakistan or Pakistan administered Kashmir. “It is irony that those prisoners who have completed their term are not being deported while section 436(A) of the Indian Penal Code reads that any prisoners who complete his term should be released without any delay,” he said.
Ever since PDP patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed has assumed the charge of the state, the demand for immediate release or shifting of local inmates from outside states to Srinagar Central Jail has gone louder.
“It will be a great service from Mufti Muhammad Sayeed to society if he succeeds in his endeavor and would bring back all the Kashmir prisoners back to Valley from the all the outside jails of India,” a reputed Civil Society member said.
There are more than two dozen people who have been serving life imprisonment. These include Sheikh Nazir Ahmad of Batamaloo, Showkat Ahmad Khan from Nishat, Javed Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Ayub Dar, Muhammad Ayub Mir (Hazratbal), Ghulam Qadir Bhat (Dooru), Muhammad Shafi Khan, Raj Din Khan, Shabir Ahmad Malik, Muhammad Amin Dar, Noor Muhammad Tantry, Feroz Ahmad Bhat, Parvez Ahmed Mir, Sheikh Samiullah and Ali Muhammad Sheikh (brothers), Mushtaq Ahmed Kaloo, Muhammad Amin Wani, Mahmoud Topiwala, Javed Ahmed Wani, Shabir Ahmad Najar , Gulzar Ahmad Wani and Muhammad Ishaq Paul (Shopian), Sheikh Farhat (Bemina) and Sheikh Imran (Karfali Mohalla Habba Kadal).
Families of these convicted persons blame Delhi police for “implicating” their dear ones in “false cases.”
The Baba family from Rainawari Srinagar has been waiting for their beloved to get shifted from Vodadara Gujrat to Srinagar from past five years.
Nazir Ahmed Baba from Rainawari Srinagar told CNS that on March 14, 2010, Gujarat’s ‘Anti-Terrorist Squad’ (ATS) arrested his brother Bashir Baba, despite Jammu and Kashmir police had given him clean chit and had asked Gujrat police to release him.
“Gujrat police knows Baba is innocent. When we cross long distance to meet him, the Jail authorities provide us only 15 minutes and every time we return with gloomy faces,” he said.
The brother of Muhammad Hussain Fazli a resident of Soura Srinagar told CNS that there are some youth who doesn’t figure anywhere and nobody knows about them. “Some caged people are so unfortunate that nobody is interested to plead their cases,” he said.
Senior separatist leader Javid Ahmed Mir said that there is no denying in this fact that the cases of some of the caged people do not get highlighted the way they should. “There are people locked up in detention centres about whom people know nothing. Muhammad Hussain Fazli (Soura), Muhammad Rafiq Shah (Alesteng), Abdul Gani Goni (Kishtwar) Javid Ahmed Khan (Nowpora), Latif Waja and Mirza Nisar both residents of Khankah Srinagar and many more are spending their time behind the bars and are living in anonymity.
The families of Sheikh Imran (Karfali Mohalla) and Sheikh Farhat (Bemina) were relieved when the duo were shifted to Kotbalwal and then to Baramulla Sub Jail from Alipore Jail Kolkatta. “Even Kolkatta police know that both Imran and Farhat are innocent and yet they were implicated in a fabricated case in 2003,” Muzamil the brother of Imran told CNS.
Ghulam Qadir Bhat, 60, hailing from Dooru, Islamabad was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Court on the charges of hatching a conspiracy to eliminate high profile personalities. Her daughter Mubeena is fighting a lonely battle for the past ten years to get her father released from Tihar Jail.
Latif Ahmed Wajah, a resident of Khankah Srinagar has been languishing from 19 years in Jaipur Rajsthan jail. “My brother was acquitted by Gujrat and Jaipur court and still after that he was accused of planting bombs in different states of India. It has become a routine affair for my family to visit him once in a month from past 19 years and the agony and pain that we feel is unfathomable,” said Tariq Ahmed.
Muslim Tehreek Khawteen Chairperson, Zamrooda Habib told CNS that at least 70 to 80 Kashmiri people are languishing in different jails of India.
“Mirza Nisar, Ali Muhammad Bhat, Javid Ahmed Khan Tariq Ahmed Dar, Farooq Ahmed Daga and Abdul Gani Goni are languishing in different jails including Jaipur, Tihar, Banglore, Rajsthan and Gujrat,” she said and demanded that State Government must take steps to ensure their safety and bring them back to Central Jail Srinagar.
According to Hurriyat G spokesperson Ayaz Akbar at least 500 political prisoners including militants have been locked up in jails of Jammu and Kashmir. “Some of them include Dr Qasim Faktoo, Mushtaq-ul-Islam, Hurriyat G district president Shopian Shakil Ahmed Itoo, district president Kulgam Muhammad Shaban Dar, Zubir Ahmed Turray (Shopian), Showkat Ahmed (Kulgam), Nasir Abdullah (Palhalan), Sameer Gojri (Baramulla), Muhammad Amin Dar (Banihal), Sabzar Ahmed Pala, Mubarak Ahmed Wani, Pir Muhammad Ashraf (Anantnag), Manzoor Ahmed Najar, Ashiq Hussain, Basharat Mir, Sameer Ahmed, Muhammad Asif, Arif Nazir, Abdul Hamid Malik and others.
