J&K Police Has Been Quietly Arresting Children Without A Paper Trail
For a week, from August 27 to September 3 this year, 17-year-old Waseem Ahmad Thakur left his home each morning for the nearest police station in Soura, where he would sit for 12 hours before he was allowed to return home. “They asked him to be present at the police station every day from 8 am to 8 pm,” Thakur’s father, Ghulam Ahmad, told HuffPost India. “When my son went to the station on the first day, he said there were 5-10 boys like him who had been told the same thing.”
Thakur is one of several Kashmiri children who have been placed in limbo by the state police force, possibly in breach of the law. Some of these children, their parents said, were physically abused by policemen during their illegal detention.
HuffPost India has been able to identify at least four such cases, including a 15-year-old high school student who was illegally detained for 23 days without charge. The child detainees and their family members said more children had been arrested. Family members refused to be photographed, and most spoke off record as they feared police reprisals.…
SEE ALSO:
- Kashmir: Fact-finding report accuses Indian Army of committing atrocities, demands inquiry – By Gaurav Sarkar (Sep 24, 2019, News Laundry)
https://newslaundry.com/2019/09/24/kashmir-fact-finding-report-accuses-indian-army-of-committing-atrocities-demands-inquiry - Activists find a Kashmir contrary to govt claims – By Sweta Dutta (Sep 25, 2019, Mumbai Mirror)
https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/news/india/activists-find-a-kashmir-contrary-to-govt-claims/articleshow/71281476.cms - Kashmir’s news media faces existential crisis amid restrictions, arrests – By Kunal Majumder (Sep 24, 2019, CPJ)
https://cpj.org/blog/2019/09/kashmirs-news-media-faces-existential-crisis-amid-.php - Kashmir: Missing Journalist Sums Up Total Breakdown Of Democracy – By Nikhila Henry (Sep 18, 2019, Huffington Post)
https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/journalist-vanishes-in-jammu-and-kashmir-under-psa_in_5d80dabce4b077dcbd6485ef
