Attempts of 54 Valley youths to join militancy foiled: police

POLICE SPOKESPERSON SAID 28 YOUTHS WERE ARRESTED FROM NORTH KASHMIR, 13 FROM CENTRAL KASHMIR AND ANOTHER 13 WERE ARRESTED IN SOUTH KASHMIR

SRINAGAR : Jammu and Kashmir police said on Monday that in the past few months, they have arrested 54 youths, including four boys last week, who were allegedly on way to join militancy. A police spokesperson said “Police in frontier district of Kupwara arrested four boys who were attempting to cross the line of control (LoC) last week. The force foiled their attempts to join militancy thereby saving 54 families getting adversely affected.” The spokesman added that the youth were arrested from different districts of Kashmir.

The official said that 28 youths were arrested from the Baramulla, Kupwara, Sopore, Handwara and Bandipora districts in north Kashmir, 13 from central Kashmir while an equal number of youths were arrested in Pulwama, Anantnag, Shopian, Awantipora and Kulgam district of south Kashmir.

“On June 27, Kupwara police station received information that four boys of Gulgam village had gone missing. Following the information, a general alert was sounded across the district and two teams were constituted to trace them. During the search, one of the teams intercepted the boys near a Nallah in dense forest close to the LoC and they shifted them to Kupwara police station ,” the spokesman said. However, as per newspaper reports on Sunday, the four boys, aged 11, 12, 13 and 15, abandoned their journey midway after they got homesick and returned to Gulgam, a day after leaving their homes for LoC.

The report quoted the parents of one of the boys saying that as soon as they reached home, the parents took all four of them to Kupwara police station.

The report said that the boys were subsequently detained by the police.

The police spokesman also said, “People of the area including the parents of the youths hailed the efforts of the police as three of the youths were handed over to their parents while one of them and his motivator were sent to juvenile home.” “Though arms and ammunitions were recovered from many of the arrested youth, yet some of them were handed over to their families after counselling. By doing so, their families are saved from the adverse effects of the militancy,” the spokesman added.