A video clip of militants is believed to have “motivated” four teenagers from Sopore, who were detained in frontier district of Kupwara recently while attempting to cross the Line of Control (LoC) to take up arms.
The four teenagers from Sopore have reportedly told the police that they decided to go to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) for arms training after watching a video of militants. The video was shown to them by a local resident, who works in a private company in Sopore.
“We have picked the youth who showed them the video and are questioning him to find out whether it was he who motivated them or the boys went on their own after watching it,” Deputy Inspector General of Police, north Kashmir, Gareeb Das, said. “We are investigating all the angles in the case,” he added.
Four teenagers between the age group of 17 and 19 identified as Adil Ahmed, Ishfaq, Tahir and Aijaz, all residents of Rather Mohallah Krankshiwan, Sopore, 45 km from here, were detained by the Army’s 6 Rashtriya Rifles in frontier district of Kupwara on August 31 when they were moving in suspicious circumstances in the Vilgam forests.
An Army’s patrolling party noticed them and during questioning they revealed they were heading to the PoK for arms training. The four were handed over to the police and later released after counselling.
This was the first group of local youth intercepted and detained while attempting to cross over to PoK for arms training this year.
Militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen’s 21-year-old militant commander Burhan Muzaffar has in recent past taken to the virtual world and has been uploading videos and pictures on the social media to attract youth towards militancy. In one recent video, he asked Kashmiri youth to join them. The pictures of Hizbul militants of south Kashmir in full battle fatigue and rifles have also gone viral on social media.
