Held children in India proved innocent but still not free

Nafees Zakaria, Dr Ghulam Mustafa, Praveen Swami speak in Geo’s ‘Aaj Shahzaib Khanzada Kay Sath’

KARACHI: Two Pakistani children held in India have been proved innocent. These children were arrested by the Indian forces after the Uri attacks. The children were natives of Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir. Both children, Faisal Hasan Awan and Yaseen Khursheed, were students of X Grade. The children were accused to be the guides of terrorists involved in the Uri attacks. Even after they were accused to be the guides of terrorists, the Indian investigation agency, the National Investigation Agency, declared the children innocent. However, these children are still held by India since September 21, 2016.

While speaking at Geo’s show ‘Aaj Shahzaib Khanzada Kay Sath’, Dr Ghulam Mustafa, the brother of accused Faisal Hasan, said that when his brother disappeared, they came to know through the Indian media that Faisal was held in India. “Since then, my brother has not arrived,” he said. “We submitted the details to the Pakistani High Commission, New Delhi, in September but didn’t receive any response for the next two months.

“On Monday, the Pakistani High Commission contacted us to provide them with relevant documents of my brother. The mothers of both children are really worried,” said Dr Mustafa. “Even in India, the arrest of these children is being condemned.”

Senior Indian journalist and the Indian Express’s Strategic Editor Praveen Swami said that there was no chance for development of any case against those children. He added by saying that the police had also said that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that the children were linked to terrorists. “The dwellers of the village, where the children were arrested, have confirmed that the children didn’t have any objectionable thing on them,” he said. “The children have been shown as adults in the First Investigation Report (FIR) due to which they have not been kept in juvenile jails and even they were not provided with a lawyer.”

Even people in India are condemning the arrest of these children but the Foreign Office of Pakistan is being lethargic in this case.

While speaking at Geo’s ‘Aaj Shahzaib Khanzada Kay Sath’, the Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said that he was not in a position to talk about the return of both children. He said investigations regarding the arrest of the children were underway. The spokesperson also said that the mission was looking after the investigations and was also in touch with the Indian authorities. However, he claimed that he was not aware of the emails of Faisal Hasan’s brother. In the end, he said that he was not in a position to specify the exact time of arrival of the two children.

Pakistani authorities have not come into action though four months have passed. The government must pay attention to this case. It must remain clear that on September 18, 2016, an Indian Army camp was attacked in the area of Uri, Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK). In this attack, 19 Indian soldiers were killed. India accused Pakistan for the attack. The basis of this accusation was the arrest of two children named Faisal Hasan Awan (20) and Yaseen Khursheed (19).

Following the incident, India's Foreign Office spokesperson Vikas Swarup had updated a message on Twitter on September 27, 2016, claiming that the Indian foreign secretary had shared the proof of the Uri attack with the Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit on a telephone call.

According to the Indian Foreign Office spokesperson, the Indian foreign secretary had shared with the Pakistani high commissioner that India had arrested two guides of the Uri attack terrorists, aged 19 and 20. However, India is now reluctant to prove its own accusations.