Police re-opens cases filed against youth during 2008, 2010 uprisings
Several detained after being called to police stations; Top police officer claims they are being ‘called for questioning’
The FIRs registered in 2008 and 2010 mass uprisings against youth allegedly involved in stone-throwing and street protests that time have started to haunt the victims again as police is arresting them afresh, sources told Kashmir Post on Thursday.
For the past three weeks, sources said, police is either raiding or calling the youth—against whom FIRs were registered in 2008 and 2010 public uprisings—to concerned police stations and detaining them there again.
During the 2008 mass uprising against transfer of land to Amarnath Shrine Board by the then PDP-Congress government, and 2010 agitation triggered by a fake encounter in north Kashmir’s Machil and subsequent protests across Kashmir, police registered hundreds of cases against youth for their alleged involvement in stone-throwing. Even some cases registered in 2011 and 2013 when Afzal Guru was hanged, have been re-opened, sources said.
“Even youth who were promised amnesty by then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah are also being called to police stations. At least 634 people facing stone-pelting charges were given amnesty on the occasion of Eid after approval of withdrawal of 104 cases against them,” official sources said.
“Our wards are again being called to police stations. They were arrested in 2010 for stone-throwing,” a group of residents from Pulwama and Anantnag districts told Kashmir Post over phone. “This is notwithstanding the fact that today they have nothing to do with protests.”
Similar reports came in from several other areas of Kashmir. “We are getting calls from police almost every-day asking us to present our wards in police stations,” residents of Khanyar, Nowhatta, Mehjoor Nagar and many other localities of Srinagar told Kashmir Post . They alleged that several such youth were detained after they were produced before police. Director General of Police (Law and Order), Dr S P Vaid admitted that youth involved in stone-throwing and street protests in 2008 and 2010 are being called “for questioning.”
“We check and follow the ‘history sheet’ of youth involved in disruption of peace in 2008 and 2010,” he told Kashmir Post . He said after investigations, action is being taken accordingly. Vaid said police is assuring that no innocent is harassed. “In case they are not involved in stone-pelting and disturbance of peace, they are being set free,” he said. “We won’t allow harassment of law-abiding citizens.”
Pertinently, to break up protests that erupted across Kashmir after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Wani on July 8, police have arrested over 9500 people so far across the Valley while 5500 are still “wanted.”
The arrest spree, which has come in for severe criticism and is allegedly adding fuel to the fire, has been launched across Kashmir, forcing hundreds of youth to go into hiding. Most of the arrests have been carried out in south Kashmir areas of Anantnag, Pulwama, Awantipora, Kulgam and Shopian, followed by north Kashmir’s Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora, Sopore, Handwara and central Kashmir’s Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal districts.
