Srinagar, 13 November, 2019 : The families of juveniles being detained by the Indian Police in Srinagar have said that authorities are not only arresting their children but are also making them pay for the meals that are served to their wards while in custody.
At least five families in a Srinagar locality said that police personnel in civilian clothes are arresting children, aged 14 to 16 years, bundling them into private vehicles before driving them to police stations.
The police personnel are driving around the residential neighbourhoods of Srinagar in the private vehicles to scout for juveniles roaming around their homes, the families said.
Three of the juveniles ThePrint spoke to after they were let off said not only were they detained for over a week but also thrashed during their time in the police lock-ups.
The police, however, have so far maintained that they have been picking up the juveniles, ever since the Indian PM Modi government’s 5 August decision to scrap J&K’s special status.
Haseeb Mughal, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Srinagar while admitting that police are picking up youngsters in the 14-24 age group said, the detentions are happening in areas where there were reports of stone pelting and an informal community bond is signed by the relatives, families or neighbours who ensure that the youth are not participate in protests.
The Supreme Court of India on 5 November in a fresh report on the minors being detained in the Valley in its report submitted on 1 October, the committee had stated that 144 children had been detained in Kashmir since 5 August.
The relatives of three minors and of another youth aged 20s who were all detained from a single locality on the outskirts of Srinagar said that their children were detained by three policemen in plain clothes and bundled into a Maruti Zen right from outside their homes.
One of the minors aged 14-year-old talking to media men said that he had left home on a cycle to fetch meat from a nearby shop when he was stopped by the three policemen. “They slapped me three to four times before forcing me to sit in the car. They then stopped at three other places to pick up three other boys. One of them was my cousin,” the minor said. He added his friends brought the empty cycle back home.
The father a shopkeeper by profession of one detained minor, said it was after a woman who had witnessed the detentions informed the families about the incident that they went straight to the police station requesting local officers to release their children.
“They did not release them. They said the children were arrested as they might indulge in stone pelting,” the father said. “My son has never indulged in stone pelting and has never been named in a case. It was only after a week of requesting and begging that they let my child go.”
The brother of another minor detained on the same day said that it was only after he and nine others submitted a photocopy of their Aadhar cards and lodged their names as “guarantees” that the minors were released.
“The police said that if even one of the minor boys throws a single stone all of those who had given their names as guarantors at the time of their release will be held accountable,” the brother said. He added that his 15-year-old brother was eating outside a a shop when the Zen stopped right in front of him.
Inside the lock-up, the minors said, they were beaten by police. “The first day they beat us using a cable wire. They kept on asking us to give more names of boys throwing stones,” said one of the minors. “ We would sit all day in the cell. It was cold and dark in their.”
The father of of detained boy said that police sought Rs 100 a day, which they said would be used to fetch meals for the detained youth. The youth were detained in lock-ups along with other adult detainees, the families pointed out.
The Amnesty International said that most of the minors were often not formally detained.
“Instead, youth from different villages were being picked by the Indian army and police and detained for four to eight days without formal charges and then released on signing a bond or an undertaking by the community heads stating that they will not indulge in stone pelting or protests,” Nazia Erum, Amnesty India’s media and advocacy manager said in an email. “Detentions without any kind of documentation and recourse to justice completely overlook human rights guarantees and perpetuate fear in people.”
The police data showed that 2,000 additional arrests were made between the months of September and October from areas from where protests were reported.
The Indian news paper Hindu reported, citing a police report data showed that around 6,300 people, including politicians, had been rounded up in the last three months. Tuesday marked the third month since prohibitory restrictions were placed in the region.
Talking to media reporter in Srinagar who visited several districts of south Kashmir said that near about 30,000 people including politicians, youth and activists were arrested and thousands were detained under black law Public Safety Act while the local police stations were fulled by they young boys. sources