Srinagar, March 29: A Kashmiri youth, who the Indian police claim planning a suicide attack in the territory, was arrested by the Indian army in 2003 and was untraced ever since, his frantic mother has disclosed. Holding protests along with her Lawaypora family at the Press Enclave in Srinagar, Farida Bano said that her son, Shaukat Ahmad Paul, was picked up by an Indian army officer, Major Pratap of the Kilo Force in 2003.
She was reacting to a media report quoting the Indian police that Paul was planning a suicide attack in Srinagar.
“I was shocked when I read the report today, and wept uncontrollably. My son has been missing for the past 10 years, and all this time the army has denied involvement in his arrest,” Paul’s mother said.
Paul was just 18, and had been working for a local newspaper when the army took him away, she said.
“We lodged an FIR with the police soon after his arrest, and later on it was proved that he was arrested by Major Pratap,” she said.
“We and families of other disappeared persons have been fighting to know about their whereabouts for the past ten years,” she said.
“How can the police claim that my son is ready to strike in Srinagar when it was proved that he was arrested by the army ten years back. If he is alive, why are the police not telling us about his whereabouts? We are sure that he is in police custody,” she said, adding that an auto-driver had confirmed her son’s arrest then.