Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Sept 1: Army arrested four teenagers from Hafrooda forests of North Kashmir’s Kupwara district who were trying to cross the Line of Control (LoC) into Pakistan occupied Kashmir for arms training. Police have decided not to register a case against them since they are under age and will be sent home after counseling.
A senior police officer said that youth had been influenced by the recent video of Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, who had asked Kashmiri youth to join Jihad.
The youth who are now with Sopore Police, told interrogators that they decided to go for arms training after seeing video of Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, on social networking site asking Kashmiri youth to join Jihad.
One of them Aijaz Ahmad Lone told interrogators that he left home at 8 a.m. on August 30 and they assembled in the Volleyball ground at Chankhan, Sopore. They then moved to bus stand Sopore on foot and boarded bus for Kupwara.
At Kupwara town, they had tea before boarding a Sumo for Vilgam village where they boarded another Sumo to village Tarakpora. They started their journey on foot to Hafrooda forests and at 6 p.m. it started raining and as weather was packed and there they decided to return home. When they were heading home, an Army party of 6 RR intercepted them in the forests yesterday.
The RR handed them over to Police at Vilgam who handed them over to Sopore Police. They are now detained at Sopore and a senior officer told Excelsior that the Police won’t register a case against them as they are all under age. “They will be counseled and handed over to the parents who will be asked to keep a close watch on their activities”, the officer said.
The boys have been identified as Adil Nabi Rather, 17, Tahir Ahmad Ganie 18, Ishfaq Ahmad Malik, 18, and Aijaz Lone Krankshun Sopore in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
According to reports with the security agencies, this is for the first time in the recent years that boys were caught while trying to ex-filtrate to Pakistan occupied Kashmir for arms training.
They said that over 150 Kashmiri youth have joined militancy since 2013 and not a single among them had gone to PoK for training. All these youth were trained locally in handling arms and explosives.
The data revealed that 31 youth joined militancy in 2013, 63 in 2014 and this year the number has already crossed 60. Majority of these boys hailed from South Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
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