How Six Youths From UP Ended Up Being Stone Pelters in Kashmir

Lucknow: Six Uttar Pradesh youths who had found jobs in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama have claimed they were made to pelt stones at security forces.

Director General of Police OP Singh on Friday said the six youths from Baghpat and Saharanpur districts have complained that they were told to take part in stone pelting. Fed up with this, they returned home, the officer added.

The youths had gone to Pulwama to work as tailors on a monthly salary of Rs 20,000. However, they said they were later pushed to unskilled works such as mopping and washing vehicles.

"Whenever security forces used to engage in an encounter with militants, the latter would seek shelter in houses of locals. In order to stall the operations of security forces the locals used to pelt stones at them," one of the youth allegedly told the police.

“We will deal with this issue very discreetly,” the DGP said. The state’s anti-terror squad will probe the matter.

The police suspects the contractor coerced them into stone-pelting during search operations by the Indian Army and security forces.

The families of the detained youth told the police that their children had gone to Kashmir for a contractual job at a stitching factory but they returned, complaining of being coerced into stone-pelting.

Both the youths have alleged that they are still getting threat calls from Kashmir and have sought help of the police.

Baghpat’s Superintendent of Police Jai Prakash also mentioned one such case. He said a man identified as Nasim told police that he and some others were kept at a factory in Pulwama. On one occasion, the labourers there took part in stone pelting. He was also asked to throw stones but he refused and escaped from the place, the SP added.

The Kashmir Valley has seen a massive rise in stone-pelting over the last few years, with deterioration in the security situation. The Kashmiri youth is being radicalised by terror groups as well as separatists, say sources.

Intelligence reports and several probes have proven that money is being pumped into Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan via separatists and its other proxies, which is then used to pay those pelting stones at security forces.