J&K Govt’s policy to rehabilitate ex-militants a damp squib

July 16, 2014 12:19 pm | Updated 12:19 pm IST - SRINAGAR:

For Muqqadas Anjum of Muzaffarabad (PoK) — the Paradise on Earth and her dreamland across the LoC — has turned into a hell hole weeks after her landing in Kashmir valley, on May 30. Her husband Tawheed Ahmad Khan (38) of Lakshmanpora Batmaloo, a one-time recruit of Hizbul Mujahideen, brought her home with three children— Ajman (14), Ehtishan (12) and Sufian (3) — under Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s much-hyped scheme for return and rehabilitation of Kashmiris who went across to get guerrilla training, besides arms and ammunition from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 2009.

“It’s a beautiful land. But I see nothing other than darkness ahead,” Ms. Anjum told The Hindu on being asked how she felt in Srinagar. “I was a government schoolteacher in Muzaffarabad. My salary was Rs 35,000 a month. On retirement, I would have taken home Rs 60 lakh. I abandoned all that and chose to live here with my husband and children. We spent Rs 6,50,000 to reach here. But nobody is listening to us. I don’t see any future for my family here.”

Tawheed, who claimed to have deserted his training camp “within three days” of his joining, did a diploma in Ayurvedic pharmacy before launching a lucrative business in medicine. Anjum’s father Hakeem Fazal-ur-Rehman and brother Abdul Waheed were both medical practitioners at Barakote, in PoK. “We earned a lot of money, enjoyed, performed Umrah (in Saudi Arabia) thrice and lived a lavish life. Now we have landed in a place where we have nothing to eat,” Tawheed said. He is one of the 300-odd former militants who responded to the State government’s 2010 rehabilitation policy and returned from Pakistan with their wives and children, believed to be more than 1,500 in number.

Tawheed is better placed in the sense that two private schools have granted admission to his sons. Teachers at Prime Public School Barzulla were impressed with Ajman’s talent. The 14-year-old, who memorised all 30 chapters of holy Quran at Allama Iqbal Public School in Muzaffarabad, is a perfect Hafiz . Most of the government and the private schools in Kashmir refuse to admit the children of men reneging militancy. Owners insist that “documentation” was the real problem.

Officials of the Police Department’s Counter Intelligence wing maintained that their job was restricted to facilitating the returnee’s travel from Nepal’s border to Srinagar. They said that counselling of the families for the first three months was a must under the policy but not one rehabilitation centre had been set up since November 2010.

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