SRINAGAR: A specially-abled youth of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district in Jammu and Kashmir has been arrested and booked under stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) for stone pelting by police.
The specially-abled youth Tanvir Ahmad War of Drangbal, Baramulla in north Kashmir is presently lodged in Central Jail, Srinagar.
Tanvir, whose legs were damaged by polio in his early childhood, is languishing in Central Jail, Srinagar after police booked him for stone pelting and invoked stringent PSA against him.
Under PSA, a person can be booked without trial for six months.
Pro-independence JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik has termed his specially-abled youth’s arrest as “atrocious” and a “glaring example of ‘mental bankruptcy’ of rulers.” “How can a man, who is unable to walk two steps on his feet, be implicated in stone pelting cases and sent to jail under PSA,” Malik has said.
However, police has defended the arrest and booking of specially-abled youth under PSA.
“Tanvir was actively involved in 2016 unrest in old town Baramulla. He had been moving around on the tricycle provided to him earlier by Army as a goodwill gesture,” a police spokesman said.
He claimed that Tanvir spearheaded violent mob violence in Baramulla town pushing young boys on forefront of trouble endangering their lives.
“He would decorate his tricycle with Pakistani flags and make announcements from public address systems and instigating people for violence,” the spokesman said.
The Valley witnessed over five month long unrest last year following killing of Hizb commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces on July 8, 2016. At least 92 civilians were killed and thousands injured in security forces firing in Valley during the unrest period.
Police claimed that on one occasion, specially-abled youth with the help of his “gang” hijacked four tippers loaded with stones and got them unloaded on roads of old town Baramulla to block the roads to prevent police from acting against the miscreants. “Tanvir despite his disability has been making good use of his tricycle to travel and headed a gang of stone pelters who would help him in undertaking his antisocial activities,” the spokesman claimed.
The spokesman further claimed that the specially-abled youth has been continuously involved in “instigating and engineering violence” in Baramulla since 2008.
“In 2008, he compelled and forced separatist leader Sheikh Aziz to lead the procession. The separatist leader on the advice of many stakeholders wanted to return back from Sheeri Baramulla to Srinagar. However, Tanvir, who was atop a truck, threatened him with dire consequences and told him that if he could march ahead with disabilities, what excuse the separatist leader had," he said.
Sheikh Aziz had led a march from Srinagar to north Kashmir during the Amarnath land row agitation in 2008. He was killed in police firing on August 11, 2008 in Baramulla.