South Asia Human Rights Journalist Association

June 15, 2017 Budgam: Farooq Ahmad Dar has asked dreaded Indian Amrys  of 53 Rashtriya Rifles (RRMajor Leetul Gogoi to return his mobile phone, which he says the army officer snatched from him on April 9, the day Major Gogoi tied Farooq to the bonnet of an Indian army jeep and paraded him through several villages in Budgam. We are poor people, what will we complain: Farooq Ahmed Dar, his mother at their home in Chil, Budgam. 
“I was not given justice. Can I at least get my phone back? The phone you snatched from me before making me a human shield,” Dar said in his message to Major Gogoi, while talking to Kashmir Reader.
“I have a 70-year-old mother living with me. We are hardly able to meet our daily needs with my meagre income. I can’t afford a new phone. The army is deliberately denying me my phone to add salt to my wounds,” he said.
Giving details of how his phone was snatched, Dar said when the army jeep to which he was tied reached near Kralnew village, he received a call on his mobile phone. “The moment the mobile phone rang, the major and his soldiers stopped the vehicle. Then they took out the phone from my pocket. I was helpless. I didn’t say a word to them as I was tied and scared,” Dar said.
“Later I requested them to return my phone. However, the soldiers declined to return it. They told me to collect it from the army camp at Beerwah,” Dar said. He said he has not visited the camp. “I dread to visit the camp. Sometimes I think that if I walk past that area, I would have to go through the same torture,” Dar said.