Jehad’s lost boys yearn for home

DODA - Abdul Gani Khan, a 65-year-old resident of this mountainous district in Jammu and Kashmir, had almost given up hope of ever seeing his son Amjad who crossed over to Pakistan 15 years ago for arms training - till he got a letter from Amjad describing his craving to return home.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. But it was his writing,” said Khan who has been meeting security officials with the letter he got from Pakistan a couple of months ago. He has since been pleading with officials that his son be allowed to return.

Khan is today brimming with hope after the central government’s decision to give amnesty to Kashmiri militants across the border — though from idea to action it may take longer than he expects.

“Amjad is ready to surrender, but is fearing he may be jailed. I have shown the letter to officials. There was no hope until today,” Khan told IANS.

The elderly father was almost reconciled to the idea that Amjad was dead. After all, it was so long since he heard from his only son, who, then 20, left for arms training in Pakistan.

According to intelligence officials in the state, a number of militants in Pakistan-administered Kashmir have expressed their willingness to surrender through similar letters and telephonic conversations with their parents.

Amjad’s letter in just a case in point. Officials privately maintain that many parents from various parts of the state have been approaching them to facilitate the return of their sons from Pakistan.

The letters, according to officials, reveal the pathetic conditions they are living in across the border.

“Amjad in his letter also named a number of men from other parts of the state who also want to return,” Khan said.

“I am sorry for leaving you. It is very tough to be away from the family. Please speak to somebody. I want to return. I am working as a household servant in a family,” Khan described the content of the letter written in Urdu.

According to rough estimates, there are about 3,000 men from Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan who had crossed over in different batches since 1989 when Islamist militancy erupted in the state. These youths were lured to jehad by militant outfits like Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and other groups who have training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Many of them have left the camps and have started earning livelihoods on their own, according to people who have visited the area recently.

“Most of them are living in terrible conditions. Some have turned beggars, many work as labourers. Some have opened roadside shops. There is a general craving among most of them to return home,” said Nazir Ahmed, a Srinagar resident, who was in Pakistan on a business trip in 2007.

The government’s decision to allow them safe return has cheered many families in the state. But there is a general apprehension how to let it happen.

“The Pakistan Army won’t allow them to cross the border, that too to surrender before India. Even the Indian government has to think before allowing them to return. Their identity, their intentions, their rehabilitation. All this will take a long time,” said Raoof Ahmed, a peace studies teacher in Islamic University of Science and Technology.

But Khan is still hopeful.

“At least I am not hopeless today. I can live with this hope as long as I live - that I will see my 20-year-old son who must have grown older now,” he said.