Indian policemen’s relatives abducted in Kashmir

By Zahid Rafiq

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir

At least twelve relatives of Indian policemen have been allegedly abducted by militants in Jammu and Kashmir since Thursday, a police official said.

Swyam Prakash Pani, a senior police official in the region, told local media that the police would soon recover the abducted people.

“They can’t reach me, they are looking for soft targets. But all of the policemen are locals, they are part of the society, and kidnapping family members won’t help anyone,” Pani told Firstpost, a local media outlet.

The abductions came after police in the region arrested relatives of the militants.

On Wednesday, India’s National Investigative Agency arrested the younger son of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin. Salahuddin’s elder son has already been incarcerated in New Delhi since October 2017.

Militants reacted by showing up at the house of a policeman in Pinglish village of Tral and abducted his son, Asif Rafiq Rather, a university student.

The police retaliated by raiding the houses of militants including that of Reyaz Naikoo, the top Hizbul Mujahideen commander in the region.

His father, Assadullah Naikoo, 65, was among the eight people arrested in raids carried out by the police throughout the south of Kashmir on Thursday.

Victimization of families

Naikoo’s father was later released from prison after the Indian authorities slapped him with a Public Safety Act that allows a person to be imprisoned without a trial.

In a video statement, Naikoo had warned against “targeting families of militants” and said if any of militants’ families were harassed, “families of your (Indian) agents, workers and policemen would not be safe.”

The abductions have suddenly brought the victimization of families of combatants into news with calls for restraint being made.

“Families shouldn’t become casualties and made to suffer for something they have little control over,” former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said.

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Also, in Siachen glacier in northern Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops have fought intermittently since 1984. A cease-fire came into effect in 2003.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.