A day before Eid-ul-Azha in September 2016, 70-year-old Abdul Rashid Wani was arrested from his medical shop in Chogal, Handwara, and then sent to Udhampur jail in Jammu under the Public Safety Act. Wani’s return home was awaited by his two daughters, two sons, and his wife, who is a heart patient and has gone into depression since the arrest of her aged husband.
65-year-old Ghulam Mohammad Bhat of Kulangam in Handwara belongs to a poor family, who was arrested during a night raid by Indian government troops two days before Eid-ul-Azha, and was shifted to Udhampur jail. He has serious problems in both of his legs.
55-year old Ghulam Hassan Malik in Chaklaphora, Langate, was arrested by Indian troops on August 4, 2016, and is now lodged in Kot Balwal jail in Jammu.
A 75-year-old retired forest officer Mohammad Subhan Wani of Dangerpora, Sopore, was arrested on August 18, 2016, from his residence and sent to Kathua jail. He is suffering from serious health ailments, like heart blockage, thyroid, sugar, and prostate, for which a surgery needs to be done immediately, said his son to media men.
65-year-old Nazir Ahmad Ganaie, a resident of Dangerpora in Sopore was arrested during a night raid on July 22, 2016. On August 7, he was sent to Udhampur jail, and on December 21, police sent him to Kot Balwal jail
76-year old Haji Sheikh Mohammad Yousuf of Sopore is still languishing in Kupwara jail after being arrested five months ago.
Yousuf’s two sons have already left this world: Mohammad Altaf Sheikh killed in 2015 by Indian armed agents a few metres from his home and his other son PhD scholar of AMU Aligarh Abdul Roaf was killed by Indian troops in passenger bus during crackdown operation in Srinagar in 2001.
Yousuf’s wife Hanifa Begum, 73, his daughter-in-law and her three kids are the family members he has left in his home. According to his wife, Yousuf has undergone three surgeries in his eye and is a heart patient. He was arrested on August 8 by the Sopore police.
84-year old Shah Wali Mohammad from Seelu Sopore was released on February 1, 2017, after spending almost five months in jail.
Shah Wali Mohammad, 84, was arrested on charges of stone-pelting on September 1.
Kashmir Reader’s Asim Shah in his report said that when he contacted Wali Mohammad on phone after his release on Friday (Feb 3), Wali Mohammad said it was not the time for congratulations, as the mission for self-determination for Kashmir was still incomplete.
On the phone, he said, “I have been arrested many times before and this time it was no different. Even though I am a senior citizen, there is no special treatment for us nor do we expect any from them (puppet regime and India).”
He said he was first arrested in March 1965 and kept in jail for more than two years till October 1967 under the DIR Act. After that, he was arrested in 1996 and kept in JIC jail of Baramulla for some months. In 2001, he was arrested again and lodged at Baramulla Jail till 2002.
“Even after reaching home to my seriously ill wife, I still think that police will arrest me again and put me in some jail. Expecting any good from them will be foolish. We have not done any crime but are asking for our birthright—freedom from India, which is to live freely, not under Indian occupation,” he said.
Shah, said that Haji Sheikh Mohammad Yousuf of Iqbal Nagar Sopore and Mohammad Subhan Wani of Dangerpora were with him in Kupwara jail but in different barracks.
I must commend you Mian Abrar for writing on social issues like this.
Sometimes I personal thing our police do not have much compassion for the elderly. which is not good because you know a nation by how it treats her elderly and the children of that nation.
Thank you
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