Disabled ‘stone pelter’: War of words over Kashmiri prisoner

TANVIR AHMAD, WHO IS UNABLE TO ‘WALK TWO STEPS’ WITHOUT HELP, IS LODGED IN JAIL FOR THE PAST ONE YEAR ON CHARGES OF PELTING STONES ON FORCES

SRINAGAR:AN incarcerated differently-abled person has been at the centre of war of words between separatists and police in restive Jammu and Kashmir after his imprisonment came to the fore recently.

Tanvir Ahmad War has been lodged in Srinagar central jail for the past one year on charges of pelting stones on security forces. But his condition was made an issue after chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Muhammad Yasin Malik came across him at the Srinagar central jail on November 27.

Malik was put in the jail that day after separatists had called for a strike against “ill-treatment” of Kashmiri prisoners.

Police said War was spearheading the mob violence that rocked the state last year, a claim refuted by the separatists, who termed the confinement as human rights violation.

Taking exception to the imprisonment, the JKLF in a statement on Saturday said War had told Malik during their chance meeting that a polio attack in his early childhood damaged his legs and he could not even take two steps without the help of a crutch.

“He was taken into custody by police on September 21, 2016 on the charges of pelting stones on occupational forces and police and despite being handicapped he was tortured severely in police custody. After about two months of illegal confinement, he was slapped with Public Safety Act and sent to jail,” the statement alleged.

He has appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Amnesty International and other international human rights organisations to take note of these “gruesome acts of human rights abuses”.

However, 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”.