The parents of a 25-year-old Kashmiri man who recently escaped from jail to become a militant have said that they understand why their son was "forced" to make the decision. Zubair Ahmed Turray escaped from jail earlier this month to join Hizbul Mujahideen. He had been arrested several times by the police for pelting stones at them. But his parents said that he was illegally detained and harassed by the police, and finally driven to join the extremist outfit.
"Nobody listened until he was forced to become a militant," said Turray's mother Saleema to The Telegraph."I think he has taken a good decision. He has rid himself of the torture of living."
According to Turray's parents, he was first picked up by the police for stone pelting in 2004, when he was about 12 years old. Since then, he was booked nine times by local police, his father Bashir told the newspaper. Saleema claimed that he had wanted to stop pelting stones, but the police kept him illegally detained, following which he was driven to militancy.
"I was slapped with Public safety Act several times and even court quashed all of them but I was not released. I was facing illegal detention since three months," Turray said in a video clip he released earlier this month after becoming a militant.
Turray's family believes that the Indian Army wants Kashmiri youth to pick up arms so it is "easier to kill them". "They want this land without its people," said Saleema to Telegraph. "I understand why my son picked up the gun. I think he was forced to do so under a conspiracy so that it became easy for them to kill him."
Army chief Bipin Rawat had earlier said that he wished more stone pelters would pick up arms so they could be dealt with the way the army wanted to retaliate. "In fact, I wish these people, instead of throwing stones at us, were firing weapons at us," the army chief told PTI. "Then I would have been happy. Then I could do what I (wanted to do)."
Also On HuffPost:
