Qazi Shibli
“His daughter is growing up, he was picked up on mere suspicion, why is the process of release taking so much of time, What is his crime?” Mohammed Iqbal of Pehlipora Shopian asks while questioning the prolonged detention of Saboor ul Haq.
The Government Force personnel knocked ‘violently’ at the door of Mohammed Iqbal Malla a few days after the abrogation of Article 370 in August last year, looking for Saboor ul Haq, his son.
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Amid grief, anger, and longing, today it is been more than a year, Saboor ul Haq picked up during a nocturnal raid on August 09 2019 has been detained under Public Safety Act at Central Jail of Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
Though such tragedies, Iqbal says, are not new for the family. “Militant families have to undergo such intimidation and harassment almost every now and then, I am used to this now.” Iqbal is the father of Militant, Waseem Ahmed Malla, who appeared in Burhan Wani photograph in 2014 along with nine others.
Waseem was killed alongside Naseer Ahmed Pandit in an encounter in Vihil area of Shopian in South Kashmir on April 07, 2016.
Around 11 PM on 09 August 2019, they came looking for Saboor, and took him away saying, “the officer needs to talk to him, and we lost contact with him later for many weeks, the next we heard, he had been shifted to Agra jail in U.P.”
Sauleh Saboor the two-year-old daughter, who was just a few months old when her father was detained has vivid memories of her father and kisses his photos, a very few in number when she sees him. “She also says the words PAA, which makes everyone around weep, But God knows how long is this wait for her to actually see her Paa.”
The sole bread earner to his family, father to a daughter of seven months age, Saboor was booked under the Public Safety Act subsequently after his detention. “We cannot reach him, due to the covid, the jails have disallowed meetings, We have not seen him for many months now,” Mohammed Iqbal said.
The Kashmiriyat also learned that Raihana, the wife of Saboor ul Haq, has also been unwell and is undergoing medical treatment. “She has been really unwell and is on medication since August last year.”
“Since the day she got the message of her husband’s detention at Agra, Raihana does not sleep at all. She wakes up in the middle of the night and starts crying. Sometimes, feels choked, ” a family member of Saboor told The Kashmiriyat.
The neighbours of Mohammed Iqbal in Pehlipora in Shopian say that the family has been harassed quite often by the forces. “When their son was in the Militant ranks, the Forces came looking for him and also troubled other neighbours as well,” a neighbour of Iqbal told The Kashmiriyat.
The Kashmiriyat spoke to an administrative official from the area who said that Saboor was booked under Public Safety Act last year for role in Anti National Activities. “The family has approached the court and there is a legal process for getting him released,” he said.
Saboor is among hundreds of Kashmiris who after bein detained were shifted to various Jails in Uttar Pradesh shortly after the Modi-led Government abrogated the special status of Jammu Kashmir in August last year.
A report by two human right groups – J&K Coalition of Civil Society and Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons – earlier this year said at least 412 persons, including youths, lawyers and businessmen were booked under the controversial PSA after August 5.
Dozens still remain incarnated in the Jails without any of their family members being able to meet them after the Jail authorities in wake of the ongoing global pandemic and to stop the spread of it halted the meetings of inmates with their family members.
in June this year, a report said that Ninety-nine percent of the habeas corpus petitions filed with the Jammu Kashmir High Court since the scrapping of Article 370 in August last year have remained pending.