New Delhi

A 14-year-old orphan Asmad Ali of a village in Pakistan occupied Kashmir close to the Line of control had inadvertantly crossed into the Indian side apparently chasing his pet pigeons.

Asad's maternal uncle Arbab Ali has made an appeal to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for release of his nephew.

In a statement issued to tthe Print news portal Arbab Ali said, "Asmad is fond of his pet pigeons; on that particular day he set them  free to fly and they flew in the direction of the LOC. He is just a small child. He chased them and didn’t realise he was crossing the Line of Control.”

Their house in village Tatrinote is just a few metres from the LoC in Poonch sector. It's located close to the Chakan-da-Bagh border crossing and trade point.

“The whole family is terribly upset,” Arbab Ali said. “Asmad’s grandmother, who brought him up, is in tears the whole day. His grandfather also cries all the time. We have no connection to any political group or organisation. Through this message, I appeal to India’s Prime Minister, in the spirit of humanity, for the child to be sent back to us.”

Accoring to police, the teenager was spotted by a patrol of the 3rd Gorkha Regiment on 28 November. Asmad had crossed the barbed-wire fencing located on the Indian side  designed to guard against intruders, especially terrorists.

The Army handed over the teenager to the Jammu and Kashmir Police which registered a FiIR citing violation of the Egress and Internal Movement Control Ordinance. The law provides for a maximum sentence of up to two years in prison.

Asmad was then produced before the Juvenile Justice Board in Poonch, and is now at a home for juvenile offenders in Ranbirsingh Pora, Jammu. A police officer familiar with the case said that “in normal circumstances, we’d have just let him go, as we have often done with children”.

However sources said i this case “there was suspicion that this boy might have crossed the LOC earlier, too, and that needed to be cleared up.”

Asmad is an eighth-grade student at the Stars School in Tatrinote. After his mother's death Asmad was brought up by his maternal grandparents, Muhammad Aslam and Khadija. His father, Banaras Ali, remarried in Lahore.

His grandfather worked as a labourer and had to give up recently due to an injury. In these circumstances, the responsibility of the family fell on his uncle Arbab Ali, who drives a rented taxi in Lahore.

Army veterans said that the Indian Army is generally generous and big-hearted in cases involving innocent civilians, especially women and children. They hope that in this case too the same approach will be followed after probing security angle.

The Indian government has often dropped charges in cases involving children who accidentally crossed the Line of Control, and returned them to their families. In December, 2020, for example, the government sent home 17-year-old Laiba Zubair and her 13-year-old sister Sana Zubair after they crossed the LoC along the Rangar nullah (stream) near Tattapani in Poonch.

In an earlier case, two daughters of a former pro-Pakistan Kashmiri who fled to Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir  along with his family in the early 1990s had tried to return by crossing the LoC.

It seems the girls were reduced to working as domestic labourers after their father passed away. In desperation they tried to return to their ancestral land in the hope they will get reunited with their extended family. They were allowed to let go.

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