PADGAMPORA: A 30-year-old man with 40 percent disability booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) is languishing in jail for more than two months.
Shabir Ahmad Wani, a tailor hailing from Padgampora village of police district Awantipora, is also the lone bread earner for a family of nine.
Shabir was picked up from his home in Larkipora locality in the dead of the night on August 19. On August 22, he was booked under PSA and shifted to Central Jail Srinagar.
Shabir’s family which includes three minor children, two unmarried sisters, wife and elderly parents are wondering how a man with disability can be accused of the charges laid in the PSA dossier
against him.
In their “grounds of detention” the police have termed Wani “mischievous” and his activities “highly prejudicial” in maintenance of law and order.
“On March 3, this year, you were leading an unlawful, violent mob equipped with wooden logs and stones along with your other associates at Gurudwara, Awantipora, after the death of one local
youth, resulting in closure of national highway and the vehicular movement,” the dossier reads.
The dossier informs that Wani was arrested for the offence but was bailed out due to bail-able nature of the offences-in FIR number 39/2019 under sections 148, 149, 341, 336 and 353.
Wani’s family contests the police claims. One, they say, Wani was never arrested before.
“Never has he been arrested before for any offence,” Khalida, Wani’s wife of more than ten years told Kashmir Reader.
Khalida’s claims are in a way also vindicated by the police dossier which, before informing of Wani’s arrest in March this year reads, “You used to carry out your aforesaid illegal activities in a
clandestine manner and timely did not come into the notice of law enforcing agencies,”
The second question Wani’s family raises is that, “how can a man with forty percent disability lead a violent mob?”
“My husband has a forty percent disability. Here is the government issued certificate to prove that. He was born with it and after he developed some complications last year, he was operated upon
as well. He is not physically fit to lead a violent mob,” Khalida told Kashmir Reader, unable to control her tears.
The disability certificate accessed by Kashmir Reader has been issued by the office of Chief Medical Officer, Pulwama in 2017 and mentions the degree of disability to be forty percent.
The family has been running from pillar to post to secure Wani’s release but remain dejected.
“We don’t know what to do. We are on the verge of penury. He has been our only source of income. Now that he is in jail, I have started to work as a laborer here and there,” Wani’s father,
Muhammad Yousuf told Kashmir Reader.
However, Yousuf is not able to earn much given the lockdown in Kashmir and the fact that he cannot push himself beyond a certain point at his age.
“Who needs an old man to work anywhere? If my son is not released soon, God knows what will happen to my family,” Yousuf laments.
Wani’s kids, 10-year-old Rehan, 7-year-old Sahira and 10-month-old Mannan have been inconsolable without their father.
“Every morning my children wake up and ask me questions about their father. They sleep after they have cried to their heart’s content every night. What am I supposed to tell them? That their
father has been incarcerated for crimes he never committed?” Khalida laments, amid silent tears, for her husband and the plight of her children.
She is also worried about the health of her husband.
“He is often in excruciating pain after his surgery last year and has frequent infections near the scar. I worry that his health will further deteriorate in detention.”

Suhail A Shah