Five arrested Kashmiri boys allege Army forced fake surrender

Srinagar, Nov 14 (UNI) Five youth, who were arrested by troops near the Line of Control (LoC) while crossing over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) a few days ago, have alleged that they were forced to fake surrender in lieu of jobs in the Army, sources said today.

The Army had claimed to have arrested Ashiq Hussain Ganai, Altaf Ahmed Akhoon, Nadim Ahmed Bhat, Wasim Ahmed Khan and Bashir Ahmed Mir, all residents of Baramulla district, on November 8 near the LoC in the Uri sector while exfiltrating to PoK for arms training.

The Army handed over the boys to the Baramulla police last evening.

During the interrogation at the Baramulla police station, the sources said the boys refuted the Army claim that they were trying to cross over to PoK and alleged that they were being implicated in a ''false case''.

The sources said the youth claimed that about 5-6 days ago, a person from Uri approached and told them that a recruitment drive was on in the Army for its unit deployed along the LoC besides they would also be given Rs two lakh each in cash.

The boys said they readily accompanied him as the job offer was ''too lucrative''.

The youth claimed that the person took them to Capt A K Singh of 14 Rajput Rifles, deployed in the Uri sector. The captain allegedly told them that they would be getting Rs 60,000 each in cash.

However, the captain allegedly put a condition that the boys have to surrender along with arms before the troops in the presence of media. ''We were told to admit before the media that we have returned to Kashmir after getting the arms training in PoK,'' the boys alleged.

''When we refused to comply with the captain's order, we were falsely implicated and charged with exfiltrating to PoK for arms training,'' they alleged.

The boys narrated the entire ''story'' to several journalists who visited them in the Baramulla police station.

UNI AG YSS VA RK1706