Families await shifting of detainees to Kashmir

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 for past many years,” Singh informed CNS.
He said that Jammu and Kashmir youth have been put in Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Naini, Mumbai, Allahabad, Madhya Pradesh, Rajhastan, Vadodara, Bangalore, 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 involved in anti-India activities have been lodged either in Tihar, Mumbai or Naini Jails.
“There are 25 Kashmiri youth lodged in Mumbai jail, 15 youth from Rajouri are in Naini jail, 12 more Kashmiris are in Gujarat jails and so on,” Singh said adding that he has been pleading the cases of some 1300 foreigners out of which 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 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 outside state jails,” a reputed civil society member said.
There are more than two dozen people who are 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, Mahmood 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 Vadodara, Gujarat, to Srinagar for past five years. Nazir Ahmed Baba told CNS that on March 14, 2010, Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested his brother Bashir Baba despite Jammu and Kashmir Police giving him clean chit and asking Gujarat Police to release him.
“Gujarat 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 don’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 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 Waza and Mirza Nisar both residents of Khankah Srinagar, and many more are 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, Imran’s brother, 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 10 years to get her father released from Tihar Jail.
Latif Ahmed Waza, a resident of Khankah Srinagar, has been languishing for 19 years in Jaipur jail. “My brother was acquitted by Gujarat and Jaipur court and still 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 for past 19 years and the agony and pain that we feel is unspeakable,” said Tariq Ahmed.
According to Hurriyat (G) spokesperson Ayaz Akbar, at least 500 political prisoners 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 (Islamabad), Manzoor Ahmed Najar, Ashiq Hussain, Basharat Mir, Sameer Ahmed, Muhammad Asif, Arif Nazir, Abdul Hamid Malik and others.” CNS