Digital Desk: In an exclusive interview with media, the family of a Pakistani teenager who was arrested in November after crossing the Line of Control (LoC) near Poonch by accident has appealed to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the schoolchild's release.
Asmad Ali, 14, went across the Indian side of the LoC while playing with his pet pigeons, according to his relatives.
Arbab Ali, Asmad's maternal uncle, claimed, "Asmad was immensely fond of his pet pigeons. He'd let them go that day, and when they soared towards the Indian side, he sprinted behind them. He was only a young child at the time, and he had no idea he was crossing the Line of Control."
The family's home in Tatrinote, adjacent to the famous Chakan-da-Bagh crossing site, has a border wall that is just a few metres from the LoC.
"The whole family is terribly upset," Arbab Ali said. "Asmad's grandmother, who brought him up, is in tears the whole day. His grandfather also cries all the time. We have no connection to any political group or organisation. Through this message, I appeal to India's Prime Minister, in the spirit of humanity, for the child to be sent back to us."
According to police papers obtained by media, the Pakistani teenager was detained by a patrol of the 3rd Gorkha Regiment on November 28, last year. According to an Army source, the adolescent was discovered on the Indian side of the Line of Control, ahead of the barbed-wire netting meant to keep terrorists out.
Following his arrest, the Army turned the adolescent over to the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who filed a First Information Report alleging a breach of the Egress and Internal Movement Control Ordinance. The legislation provides a maximum term of two years in jail. Asmad was then brought before the Poonch Juvenile Justice Board and is presently being held at a juvenile detention centre in Ranbir Singh Pora.
The FIR makes no mention of any security-related offences, implying that neither the Army nor the police suspect him of being involved in terrorism. A request for comment from the Jammu and Kashmir Police was not returned.
"In normal circumstances, we'd have just let him go, as we've routinely done with minors," a police officer acquainted with the situation said. "There was some early concern that this boy might have violated the Line of Control previously, too, which needed to be cleared up," the officer explained in this case.
Asmad, an eighth-grader at Tatrinote's Stars School, was raised by his maternal grandparents, Muhammad Aslam and Khadija, after his mother died. Banaras Ali, his father, remarried in Lahore, and Asmad found the new family environment unwelcoming, according to a family source.
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