Uri attackers' 'guides' were PoK students who left home after harassing girl

Uri: Two teenagers from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), who were arrested for allegedly abetting the Uri attack, were students who had left their homes after allegedly harassing a girl, fearing that her parents would beat them up.

According to a Hindustan Times report, classmates Faisal Husain Awan and Ahsan Khursheed had fled their villages after they realised that the girl's parents were looking for them.

The teenagers hail from the villages of Pitha Jandgran and Khiyana Khurd in PoK, which are an hour’s walk from the LoC (Line of Control). They had entered India two days after the Uri attack, in September last year, by mistake. The attack had killed 19 soldiers.

“They ran away but accidentally crossed the LoC (line of control) in Jammu and Kashmir where they were found loitering close to Uri on September 20 and picked up by locals,” the official, who is investigating the attack, was quoted as saying.

The boys were beaten by the locals and surrendered to the Army, which interrogated them. The boys, students of Class 10, are currently lodged in Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal Jail.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) would, on March 8, request a Jammu court to close the case against the boys. The boys will be allowed to go home, if the court accepts NIA's report.

However, the agency has said that it will not mention the reason why the boys left their homes in their report.

“It was not our mandate. We had to see whether the boys were involved in the Uri attack and our probe says they were not,” an official was quoted as saying.

Afraid that they would be thrashed again, the boys had for the first seven days of the NIA inquiry claimed that they were guides to the four Jaish-e-Mohammad militants, who had attacked Uri.

The NIA probing the case, however, had acknowledged that there was not much evidence to link the duo to the Uri attack. Furthermore, the attack has since been ascribed to the Laskar-e-Taiba and not JeM as claimed initially.

The two teenagers had also given varying accounts to different officials. Speaking to a woman doctor from the CRPF, the boys claimed that they had participated in the terror attack, and also described how they used an incendiary substance to burn the tents at the 12 Brigade. Awan also identified one of the four slain militants as Hafiz Ahmed, son of one Feroze, in Dharbang, west of Murree, PoK.