11 people allowed to enter India across LoC
By IANSFriday, February 25, 2011
JAMMU - A group of 11 people including seven children were taken into custody after they were allowed to enter India across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district Friday, defence officials said.
The group comprised two families headed by men, both named Shaukat Hussain, along with their wives and seven children. They were apprehended after they entered the Indian territory at Nakarket. Both had fled to Pakistani Kashmir in August 2001.
“They were challenged but the troops did not open fire at them and allowed them to enter this side on humanitarian grounds,” an army spokesman said in a statement here.
Shaukat Hussain, son of Mohammad Ismail of Surankote, Poonch, was accompanied by his wife Zaida Parveen and four children - daughters Malaika, 8, Saima, 4 and a half, Muqaddas, 3 and a half, and son Abdullah, one and half.
The other Shaukat Hussain, son of Raaz Mohammad, came with his wife Iqbal Bibi and three sons - Hamza, 8, Mustafa, 5 and a half and Ali, 2 and a half.
The spokesman said that the two revealed that in Pakistani Kashmir, they received training in handling of arms and ammunition at Bagh until they came to Surankote in October 2001 to take their wives with them. Then they started working as labourers in Bagh as they were lodged in a “Mohajir” (refugee) camp.
All the eleven people have been handed over to Jammu and Kashmir Police.
This was the largest-ever group allowed to cross into Indian Kashmir from across the LoC in the past 20 years. Earlier, the first family was allowed to enter the state in 2006, but those were in groups of two or threes.
