Hopes intervention can bring positive change in War’s life
Police says he was spearheading ‘mob violence that rocked the state last year’
Srinagar: “To camouflage its acts, Police is trying to frame a specially abled person in acts which are not even possible for a healthy person. International human rights bodies should take a serious note of these “gruesome human rights violations,” said Joint Resistance Leadership on Monday.
In a statement, the JRL said it has written to International Red Cross committee, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and United Nation Human Rights Commission seeking their intervention into the matter of specially-abled Tanveer Ahmad War S/O Muhammad Shaban War R/O Old Town Baramulla who is serving his second consecutive public safety act in Kot-Balwal jail Jammu.
According to Hurriyat, a 35-year old man Tanveer Ahmad War S/O Muhammad Shaban War R/O old town Baramulla is disabled due to polio and from his childhood has not been able to walk on his feet.
“Besides this permanent disability, he is suffering from many diseases and has to live on medicines. This specially-abled person was arrested by Baramulla police on 21st September 2017. He was ruthlessly beaten, tortured and humiliated at various police stations and was slapped with arbitrary Public safety act (PSA), and sent to Kupwara sub-jail. Tanveer Ahmad challenged the safety act in Kashmir high court and the court quashed his PSA and ordered his release. Instead of releasing him on court orders, police and civil administration slapped another PSA on him and immediately shifted him to Kot-Balwal Jail in Jammu,” reads the statement.
The Police however said that War was spearheading the mob violence that rocked the state last year, a claim refuted by the JRL, who termed the confinement as human rights violation.
A police spokesman on Sunday said that War, a resident of north Kashmir’s Baramulla, was involved in 16 cases of “instigating and engineering mob and street violence”.
Police also claimed that War and his ‘gang’ had once even carjacked four trucks loaded with stones and unloaded the materials on roads of old town Baramulla to block the entry of security forces.
Police also accused War of “compelling” the resistance leader Sheikh Aziz to lead the procession during ‘Muzaffarabad chalo’ march in 2008 which ultimately led to his death.
Rebutting the claims, JRL said he has been shifted to Srinagar central jail for appearing in an examination and it is here we came across to his story.
“It is ironical that the state authorities find a physically challenged prisoner too dangerous to be freed, although the courts repeatedly quashed his detention under Public Safety Act. Crippled due to polio since childhood, this 35-year-old young man from Baramulla is incarcerated for various charges such as hoisting flags atop a mobile phone tower, high-jacking truckloads of stones, “leading violent mobs” and also “provoking a slain resistance leader” to march towards the Line of Control in 2008, but no one is asking police and civil administration that how can a crippled man climb up a high tower and highjack trucks and force people to march towards LoC,” reads JRL statement.
(With inputs from KNS)
