The day after his release from detention under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA), the 16-year-old from a village in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district took the family’s sheep and goats out for grazing.
The mother talks about this to reiterate the innocence of her son. The day he was taken away on August 22 night was the first time police had come to their house, she adds. “We are a family of labourers and don’t know anything about politics. Still our son had to face jail… He had no role in any case.”
On September 30, after the family proved that the boy was 16, and not 22 as police had claimed, J&K authorities informed the high court that they had revoked the PSA against him. Over a month after he was held, he reached home.
Both his parents, and that of another boy in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district, who was similarly booked under the PSA, was proved to be a minor and is now out, say it is the uncertainty of the days they ran about trying to find where their children were that haunts them.So far, the PSA has been revoked against three minors in Kashmir after their families approached the high court. In a fourth case, the court has ordered an inquiry. Only those 18 and above can be detained under the PSA.
While the PSA stands revoked against the three, they are still booked under FIRs on the basis of which the Act had been imposed.Standing in orchard in Anantnag, the father of the second boy talks about making rounds of the police station and the deputy superintendent of police’s office in Anantnag.
In early August, he says, police called the 16-year-old — one of his four children — to the local station and took away his mobile phone, after questioning him about a classmate who is believed to have joined militant ranks. On August 3, the teenager was summoned again. When the calls kept coming, including to his family members, the father says, he went and handed over his son. “The officer there promised that in two days my son would be back.”
When the teenager did not return, says an uncle, they went to meet the police officer. “He told us to meet the Station House Officer.” The father says the SHO told them to meet the DySP. “For three days, it was the same story. I kept shuttling between the offices of the DySp and SHO. My day would start in the morning at the gate of the police station and we used to leave around 10 pm. We went thrice a day.”
On August 8, the uncle adds, they were informed that the 16-year-old had been shifted to the Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC), Anantnag. The JIC is run by security forces for the questioning of detained militants. “When I came home and broke the news, everyone started crying as they knew what a prison like that meant for a young boy,” says the uncle.
Next morning, fearing the worst, the family went to the JIC. “We were told he had been shifted to Central Jail, Srinagar. Without wasting time, we headed there. There we were told he had been shifted outside the state.”
Later, they came to know that the same day as they were told that the teenager had been moved to the JIC, the District Magistrate, Anantnag, cleared his detention under the PSA. The next day, August 9, he was airlifted to District Jail, Bareilly, in Uttar Pradesh, over 1,000 km away.
The dossier prepared by Anantnag SSP Altaf Khan, and submitted to the District Magistrate, seeking detention under the PSA, said, “(the) subject was born and brought up in his native village and is 22 years old. The subject has developed extremist ideology… and supports unlawful activities of the said militant outfit [JeM].” It also showed two FIRs against him, in 2016 and 2018.
The boy’s uncle claims it was the first time they were hearing of any case against him.The father says after coming to know the teenager was in Bareilly, they began a fresh round of visits, knocking on every door. “But they avoided me, giving false promises. It was heartbreak every time,” he says.
He considered contacting an IAS officer based in Jharkhand, to whom he used to sell shawls a long time ago. “I decided to go and meet my son at Bareilly and then travel to Jharkhand. But people whose relatives were in jails outside the state told me even family members are not allowed to meet them.”Finally the family approached the High Court, producing certificates of the teenager’s date of birth showing him to be a minor.
A senior police officer says they held the teenager as he was “a known miscreant and overground worker”.The father of the Baramulla-based teenager, who is in his 40s and uneducated like the rest of his family, knows little about courts. It was left to an uncle, a labourer, to fight the case.
Held on August 22 night, the 16-year-old was booked by the Baramulla District Magistrate under the PSA on August 28 and was lodged in a local police station for several days before being taken to Srinagar Central Jail.
The dossier prepared by the Sopore police mentioned the boy’s age as 21, and said, “You are (a) highly motivated stone pelter of Sopore area. You are motivating gullible youth of the area Sopore and other adjoining areas for creating law and order problems.” Police also cited one FIR related to law and order against him.Denying police claim that the boy was part of a group that had set a vehicle on fire in the area in August, the uncle says, “The whole village can vouch for his innocence. When that vehicle was burnt, the 16-year-old was at a nearby village.”
After the boy was held, the uncle says, “Every day we would leave for Srinagar in the morning. In the absence of public transport (following the abrogation of Article 370), it was an ordeal. We spent up to Rs 1,000 just reaching Srinagar,” he says.The village elders also pleaded with the local police officer on the teenager’s behalf, telling him a jail term “would ruin the boy’s life”. “The officer promised to set him free but instead he was shifted to Central Jail,” says the uncle.
On September 20, the family filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court, and produced a certificate issued by the village’s Government Primary School, where the teenager studied earlier, showing his date of birth as February 2, 2003.On September 30, the authorities told the court they had revoked the PSA.Sopore SSP Javed Iqbal says the teenager was a known stone-pelter and that an Adhaar card seized from him showed his age as above 20.
Courtesy Indian express..
