As the world celebrates Eid ul Fitr, Hundreds of families in Kashmir will observe the auspicious occasion waiting for their beloved ones incarcerated in Jails throughout North India.
In the Kashmir valley and in Jammu, more than 4000 people, as per a report published in various media organization, were detained in connection with the abrogation of partial autonomy to Jammu Kashmir, At such a time, when Politicians are also being sent extension after extension to their PSA tenures, various families had come up with the demand and made appeals to the administration to release their kin.
However, the day of Eid was not at all glee to many families, at several places, no feasts were cooked and families, who have their bread earners locked inside jails, spent the entire time mourning and crying, remembering their family members who are languishing in jails for past several months, most of them under the Public safety act.
The family of Ghulam Mohammed Dar, 48, who is a resident of Budgam District, says they did not cook any feasts, “what is there for us to celebrate, he has been in jail for the past ten months, this is no eid, it brings more grief to us.”
Dar, the family says, was called to the Police station prior to the abrogation on 03 August and was later flown to Uttar Pradesh on the 09th August, he has been there since, the family says that they knocked at every official’s door to seek his release, though, all in vain. The family says that Dar is the sole bread earner to the family.
“We do not understand why he was picked up at the first place, he has no involvement in anything, nothing at all,” the family says.
In Handwara, family of Mansoor Ahmed Lone, 27, has a similar ordeal, Mansoor, a talented singer, was called to the Handwara Police station on 05 August from where he was taken to Srinagar, where from he was flown to Bareilly District Jail. “The state is not wanting peace, they are trying to turn Kashmir into a graveyard,” his family told The Kashmiriyat.
Tariq Ahmad Malik, 28, Son of Nazir Ahmad Malik, a resident of Dandweth area in Kokernag of Islamabad (Anantnag) district was arrested under the Public safety act and has been languishing in the Kathua jail for the past eighteen months, his neighbours told The Kashmiriyat.
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Tariq is father to an infant and a lone brother of three sisters. He was arrested eighteen months ago, after that, he was booked under Public Safety Act and shifted to Kathua Jail, his old mother told The Kashmiriyat. Detailing further she said that, the family is too poor to afford frequent meetings with Tariq. “I do not know howsoever, we must meet him.”
Hundreds of prisoners from across the Kashmir valley are languishing in jails amid the massive on spread of covid 19 in entire india, the detainees, especially in Uttar Pradesh, are facing, the wrath of a hot indian summer, as well. Many of them have been sent extensions to their PSA Detention time in May for a period of three months.
A detainee from Pulwama released from a Uttar Pradesh (UP) jail post nine months of detention narrating his ordeal said, “It was hell out there.”
Here in Kashmir, the families are worried about the well being of their loved ones. “it is very tough for us to go there and meet our son, Nadeem,” a family from Kulgam told The Kashmiriyat. They said that 18-year old Nadeem was arrested on 06 August without any provocation, he has never seen the Police station, and he was picked up during a nocturnal raid at his home in Bolsu Kulgam. “The next week, after searching him intensely, we were told that he had been flown away to an Uttar Pradesh Jail”.
The Jammu Kashmir Government after a period of almost nine months started releasing the prisoners who had been detained under Public Safety act during the abrogation of special status of Jammu Kashmir in August last year. “The quashing of PSA normally started from three months, but this time, the situation has been ugly, the courts released almost nobody”, a senior lawyer Mujeeb Syed told The Kashmiriyat.
In Kulgam Nadeem’s family is a little less hopeful, his father a carpenter by profession says, that he wanted to at least go and meet Nadeem.“i am unsure, how they are spending Eid in the jail, they are, i am sure, going through a really miserable time.” His father says the people out there have animosity, which is deeply rooted in “widespread confusion” about Islamic identity and the “lazy contrast between ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’ Islamic practice”.
Hundreds of families in Kashmir including those of business heads, activists, youth and the old aged are awaiting their release in Kashmir.