Srinagar, Wed 16 Oct 2019 :Mehraj-ud-din Wani’s parents traveled around 1,000km (620 miles) by bus to visit him in Agra central jail last week. “You have no idea how I arranged the money for the travel,” his father, Ghulam Nabi Wani, said. “He has changed so much physically, he has become weak and he shivers while talking.” Wani was arrested on 9 August, during protests in Srinagar against the Indian government.Back in Kashmir, people lived in fear, said another relative. “Anybody can stop you, anybody can take [arrest] you,” he said. “There is no accountability. The moment you speak out you are in jail.”
His family said he was captured after his legs were injured by pellet fire. The family said they approached the police with a bail order to release him, but officers slapped Wani with harsher charges – accusing him of offences under the controversial Public Safety Act (PSA), which allows police to detain people for up to two years. Amnesty International describes it as a “lawless law”.------------
---His father believes his son has become a target for Indian authorities because he is from Anchar — a neighbourhood that has become a symbolic outpost of resistance against Indian forces in the region.--
Outside Agra central jail, families wait to visit their relatives. Some carry bags of apples from Kashmir’s orchards – a reminder of home – as well as medicines and dry biscuits. Enough snacks are brought so that gifts can be shared with the other inmates. It is understood that around 80 Kashmiris, including high-profile figures such as the president of the bar association of Kashmir, are detained inside. Most families can’t afford to make the journey to Agra, which takes up to 48 hours by bus.
One visitor, who asked not to be named, said his brother-in-law was being held under the PSA. Among families, he said, there was a feeling “of helplessness of not being able to do anything. Honestly speaking, I don’t have much faith in the system.”
The family has tried to challenge the detention in the courts, but government lawyers have not yet responded. “Until and unless the government does file a proper reply to the court, there is no way that we can counter it,” he said.
“He is someone who would always be busy working and all of sudden you are confined to [a] 10-by-10-metre cell,” he added. His brother-in-law wept when his daughter visited him. “She [the daughter] doesn’t have a choice, she has to cope,” he said.
Back in Kashmir, people lived in fear, said another relative. “Anybody can stop you, anybody can take [arrest] you,” he said. “There is no accountability. The moment you speak out you are in jail.”
Colin Gonsalves, a senior lawyer at Delhi-based Human Rights Law Network, said India’s “sledgehammer approach” in Kashmir raised a host of human rights issues. “The security forces are taking extreme and vindictive steps that are difficult for the state to justify,” he said.
Wani’s parents were only able to spend 30 minutes with him last week. “He missed his daughter very much, his soul is his daughter,” said Wani’s mother, Fatima. They would have taken his daughter to Agra, but it is too far for her to travel.
“Even if they want to detain him for long, they should at least lodge him closer to home. It is very difficult for us to reach Agra. It is very far place,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/16/kashmir-families-live-in-fear-as-loved-ones-are-detained-far-from-home