Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Apr 7: Police today denied “pressuring” litigants to drop their petitions from courts after the PDP president Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija Mufti accused the CID wing of pressuring her not to litigate in the High Court.
In a statement issued, Police said that they have come across several items in the media suggesting that its intelligence and counterintelligence wing among other things is pressurizing litigants to withdraw from the process of redressing their grievances through courts of law.
“Ordinarily, law enforcement agencies do not rush to the public to discuss its work processes and procedures, especially those that are legally ordained to be discreet in the public interest.”
Police said that since some of the published items contain outrightly false assertions attributed to figures with the public profile it has become necessary to point out the untruthfulness of the claims.
“On learning that accusations have been made that the CID of J&K Police has pressurized a litigant to refrain from litigating in the High Court in connection with her passport-related grievances, a quick internal audit was carried out.”
Police said that it can affirm that the claim of such pressure is “completely false” and that the officers are being detailed to approach the aggrieved person and ascertain details-who pressurized, when, where and under what circumstances, so that the internal inquiry if found inadequate, can be expanded to take suitable disciplinary action against the delinquent.”
Unfortunately, police said that the public person-referring to Iltija-has apparently projected her grievance as also to be the grievance of the public in Kashmir. “This is very problematic. J&K Police and its affiliates are public institutions designed to serve the public interest. Denigrating the community’s institutions for grievances that are personal based on false accusations is self-harm.”
Police also present figures about the number of verifications received and cleared. As per details, in 2020 out of 77686 passport verifications received, 77644 (99.95%) were cleared; in 2021: out of 75714 passport verifications received, 75176 (99.68%) were cleared and in 2022 out of 134315 passport verifications received, 128939 (99.61%) cleared.
“Security verifications preceding the issue of passports is a high-value public service,” police noted while pointing out that it has detected as many as 54 young boys who were wrongly given passport service during 2017-18.
“Unfortunately, all of them went to Pakistan, were taken to terrorist camps, trained in arms, ammunition and explosives, many of them pushed back into J&K through LoC and 26 of them died while either crossing or during encounters in the hinterland.”
The lives of 12 of these young boys could be saved by the CID after their return from Pakistan, by bringing them under preventive custody so that terrorist-separatist syndicates do not succeed in pressuring them to join terror ranks, police said.
Eventually, police said, all of the 12 have been handed over to their families and are alive and happily living amidst their families. “Unfortunately, 16 of them are still across and trapped in camps under the control of hostile agencies. It is heartbreaking to know that in some cases even parents had no idea that passport services have been extended to these boys of tender age.”
Intelligence and investigation have confirmed that in every case the visa to Pakistan was arranged at the behest of one or the other leader of a constituent party of Hurriyat, police noted.
“CID is committed to helping the parents of vulnerable young persons not fall prey to the death traps. J&K Police is committed to speedy and hassle-free clearances for more than 99% who are ‘clean and green’ and professional filtering of those who should be prevented from availing of the service-some in their interest and others in the interest of the public.”
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