SRINAGAR: More than 400 people from Jammu and Kashmir are languishing in different jails of India with twenty-nine Kashmiri youth serving life imprisonment. Most of these detainees are spending their days and nights in South Asia’s largest, Tihar Jail in Delhi.
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 black cells.
In Varanasi jail alone, there are 15 youth all from Rajouri who are languishing there for past many years, a CNS report quotes Supreme Court lawyer and Jammu-based politicians Professor Bhim Singh as said.
He said that Jammu and Kashmir youth have been put in Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Naini, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Madhya Pradesh, Rajhstan, Vadodara, Banglore, Jaipur and other places.
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 answer yet but being in touch with some of the detainees, I can tell you with authority that there are more than 275 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, 12 more Kashmiris are in Ahmedabad and so on, Singh said.
For past one month different separatist organizations took to the streets, seeking either immediate release or shifting of these inmates from outside states to Srinagar Central Jail.
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 (two brothers), Muhammad Iqbal Jan (Bandipora), Mushtaq Ahmed Kaloo, Muhammad Amin Wani, Mahmoud Topiwala, Javed Ahmed Wani, Shabir Ahmad Najar , Gulzar Ahmad Wani and Muhammad Ishaq Paul (Shopian).
Families of these convicted persons blame Delhi police for implicating their dear ones in false cases. The Baba family from Rainawari Srinagar are waiting for their beloved to get shifted from Vodadara Gujrat to Srinagar from past four years.
Nazir Ahmed Baba from Rainawari Srinagar is quoted as said that on March 14, 2010, Gujarats 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 alleges.
The brother of Muhammad Hussain Fazli a resident of Soura Srinagar told said that there were some youth who dont figure anywhere and nobody knows about them. Some caged people are so unfortunate that nobody comes to know about them, he said.
Senior separatist leader Javid Ahmed Mir says, There are people locked up in detention centers and people don’t know. Actually some cases make it to the headlines and some suffer silently.” 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.
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. His daughter Mubeena is fighting a lone battle for the past nine years to get her father released from Tihar Jail.
Muslim Khawteen Markaz Chairperson, Zamrooda Habib said that she was in touch with at least 50 to 60 Kashmiri people who were languishing in different jails of India.
Engineer Farooq, Mirza Nisar and Abdul Gani Goni are languishing in Jaipur Jail. Others have been lodged in Tihar, Banglore, Rajsthan and Gujrat jails, she said and demanded that State Government must take steps to ensure their safety and bring them back to Central Jail Srinagar.
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