A family from Kupwara, whose kin, Idrees Mir, a former government teacher was sacked by the administration for his alleged role in anti-national activities in May 2021 and later booked under the Public Safety Act in November 2022, has appealed to the LG-led administration to release their kin over humanitarian grounds.
Speaking to The Kashmiriyat, the family from the Dardpora area in Kupwara said that the family was living under miserable conditions and that they were forced to give up the education of Idrees’s young children.
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“We have three young children, and two of them are at the primary level of their education and one is yet to be admitted to the school. We don’t have enough money to admit him into a school. In fact, I’ve been forced to take out my other two children from the school,” Safeena Jan, his wife said.
She also said that she has been forced to borrow money from people after Idrees, who’s currently lodged at Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal jail, was arrested on November 11, 2022 and later booked under the Public Safety Act. “Hardly does a day go by when my little children do not ask for a thing or the other, but I am unable to provide for the basic needs of my family,” she said.
Stating that Idrees was the sole bread earner to the family, Safeena Jan, Idrees’s wife said, “His mother is paralyzed now and we cannot afford her medicines. We’ve been forced to beg on the streets. The administration should consider releasing him on humanitarian grounds.”
Officials, in their report dated 12/ 10/ 2022, had said that that one person namely Idrees Ahmad Mir, a resident of Dardpora Kralpora was appointed as a Lab Assistant on SRO 43 in the department of education as the subjects uncle Ali Mohammed Mir who was working as Government employee in education department as teacher and had got missing in the year 1990 and had no heir and the subject Idrees Ahmed Mir who was adopted by him was granted the job under SRO 43.
The order copy received by the family reads, “He was working as block president of Hurriyat till 2014 and during the years 2010-16, he provoked local youth to pelt stones on Forces. The Subject was detained under PSA in 2016 and later released on 05-02-2017.”
However, after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35 A, the subjects activities remained normal but is sympathetic towards Hurriyat, states the report.
“He is running a computer institute at present where as per the secret reports the said person to sharing the knowledge of separatist like Hurriyat (G) among the students of his institute. and there are apprehensions that the students will take part in anti national activities any time,” read the order, of which a copy is available with The Kashmiriyat.
“He was a government teacher and has done nothing other than teaching his students. Some of his students are in the Police, while many are working for other government departments including CID. The government should enquire from those students about his role during his teaching career. If the government wants Idrees to work for anything, he will. But they must release him,” she said.
After being sacked by the government, Idrees had started a computer institute where as many as 100 students were enrolled. “He had borrowed money from people to start the institute and now that he is in jail and cannot repay the debt, those who lent money are knocking at our doors everyday asking for the money Idrees had borrowed from them,” she told The Kashmiriyat.
The family has been forced to borrow money from people to be able to meet Idrees and in order to cater to basic needs including food, she said.
Born in a middle-class family in the Dardpora village of Kupwara District, Idrees Mir got educated locally and completed his higher education in Kupwara.
Idrees Mir, speaking about to The Kashmiriyat over his dismissal back then, had said, “Being dismissed came as really shocking and disappointing. I was called to Naib Tehsildar’s office, which is a few miles from my home. The official informed me on the phone that some documents had arrived and needed my signatures. I had no idea that my life was going to shatter then.”
Idrees’s elder brother, Tanveer Ahmad in 2021, had said, “Just a day before, the army came and spent the entire day inside the premises of our house but we were informed about nothing.”
“They have no idea what is going on. I will not be able to buy toys this Eid,” Idrees Jan had told The Kashmiriyat then, when asked about whether his children had any idea about what’s going on.
When he was in his teens, back in the year 2007, Idrees Jan faced his first setback, when his uncle Ali Mohd Mir, a government teacher (who had adopted him), was taken away by the Army from Govt. Higher Secondary School, Kralpora gate. He never returned since.
Idrees Mir, locally called ‘Jan’, was appointed as a Laboratory Assistant, on compassion basis in Education Department in 2007, and was later promoted as a teacher. He made a fresh start in his life and got married, from which he has three children. Idrees Jan’s peaceful life was interrupted when, in 2016, he was booked under PSA for stone-pelting. The case was later quashed by the High Court after he had spent 4 months in jail.
Idrees lost his father, Khazir Mohd Mir, in the same year when a local pelted a stone (during a land dispute) on his head, resulting in his death.
Pertinently, in 2021 the Jammu Kashmir administration headed by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha announced the formation of a Special Task Force (STF) to bring under the scanner government employees allegedly involved in ‘anti-national’ activities, after which several employees, mostly teachers were terminated from their duties.
In July 2021, the administration terminated 11 employees in a day, which included two female teachers. The first one to be terminated from his services was Idrees Mir posted in Government Middle School of Kralpora, Kupwara who was dismissed from his services in May 2021, days after the creation of Task force.
By the end of April, 2021, the Jammu Kashmir administration had created STF (Special task Force) which would engage with ‘members of the Terror Monitoring Group (TMG).’
The task force scrutinizes cases in a time-bound manner and puts forward cases of alleged anti national activists within Government Departments to the LG admin, that takes the final call over the future course after having investigated the cases.