Mehbooba says will write to Amit Shah for the release of Srinagar youth

By: Musaib Iqbal MK

Srinagar

While the family members of a teenaged youth have said that they have presented their son before the police and they finally handed him over to NIA, now the former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has said that she will write to Union Home Minister Amit Shah about this matter to seek his release.

Mehbooba Mufti said that the young boy is in the custody of NIA and said that such measures of the government will prove counterproductive.

The family members of 19-year-old Arsalan Feroz of Zaldagar area of Srinagar who was arrested by NIA on December 31 met Mehbooba Mufti on Monday and apprised her about the whole case and appealed to her to intervene in the matter.

NIA after the arrest of the youth has said in its official’s statement that Arsalan is a TRF operative, however, the family term the charges as baseless.

According to new agencies while reporting about the utterances of Mehbooba Mufti it said in their reports on Monday as follows.

We will write to the Home Minister of India, will talk to him also, if he (Arsalan) is innocent he should be released, Mehbooba said.

She said Arsalan was handed over by the family to the police on October 21 last year, and he was questioned in various police units for 40 days and was later released.

I don’t know why the NIA arrested him, even though the family handed him over to the agency. NIA claiming that he is TRF operative, but family saying otherwise, Mehbooba said.

“He is a student and not a mechanic. He was questioned for 40 days by police and given a clean chit. Why was he arrested and such an allegation was leveled against him.

He was also not a stone pelter and is innocent and there is also no FIR lodged against Arsalan in the past or present… Since the local police have no interference in the NIA matters, it is being looked after directly by the Home Ministry of India and we will write to the Home Ministry and will also speak to them, she said.

Arsalan was arrested on Thursday by the NIA which said he was an operative of ‘The Resistance Front’.

NIA conducted a search in Srinagar and arrested the TRF “operative”, Arsalan in a case of radicalizing, motivating and recruiting youth of J&K for the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The agency said till now four accused have been arrested in the instant case.

Regarding the recent protest held by the activists of Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), after all senior leaders of the alliance were put under house arrest by the authorities in Srinagar, Mehbooba said, it was not only against the delimitation Commission report, but against the abrogation of 370 and Article 35A and all that authority which are being snapped day in and day out by the Central Government.

With Agencies inputs