DAWN, 16 July, 2001
India's BSF ensure Briton's tortured
legacy in Kashmir
By Nick Paton Walsh
LONDON: It was the long hot nights in the dirty interrogation
centre in Pappatot, on the border between Kashmir and Pakistan,
that broke 18-year-old Chaudhary Aurangzeb.
Thousands of miles from his home in Manchester, Aurangzeb endured
relentless beatings and electric-shock treatment at the hands of
the Indian secret police. Now 25, the Briton was held without
trial in an Indian jail for seven years. On April 19, 1994, he
was caught walking over the Kashmiri hills with three friends -
one British and two from Pakistan, where he had been staying with
friends.
The Indian authorities, under emergency laws passed because of
fighting with Pakistani forces in Kashmir, arrested the three
after they accidentally strayed over the border. His friends were
soon freed, but he was not. Despite a campaign by his family,
India denied him a trial and left him in a series of cramped
jails until two months ago, when judges were forced to admit they
had no further case and ruled that he should be freed.
Last week Aurangzeb arrived back in London. Speaking for the
first time about his ordeal, he said he had almost given up hope
of freedom. "I didn't believe I was going to be released and
thought I would never see my family again. I am angry at the
eight years of my life they have taken away from me." He is
now barely recognizable to his friends. He has lost weight, and a
thick beard hides his boyish features. The memory of his arrest
is still vivid. Denied vital medication by his captors during the
first 17 months in Pappatot, Aurangzeb's chronic asthma worsened.
"The attacks came at night. During the day they would
torture me with a telephone: they tied the wires to different
parts of my body and used a battery to run volts through me. The
police kept asking me the same two questions - how did you come
to Kashmir? Who sent you? They kept asking me to say I was
militant. They took a bucket of water, tied my arms behind my
back, and thrust my head into it."
Memories of his arrest are still vivid. "I was walking along
the mountains when I was arrested by the Border Security Force
and they took me to a detention centre. I said I was a civilian,
but they wrote in my file that I was a militant and that was the
end of it in their eyes. I then spent 17 months in the
centre."
Aurangzeb broke down as he described the horror of the detention
centre and the conditions inside. "The sort of torture I
experienced was happening to many people in the jail. We were all
put in separate rooms, in solitary confinement. I was given two
to three chapatis a day and a little rice to eat, with some dirty
water. There were hundreds of boys there said to be involved in
militancy. Some were as young as 10 years old. The officials
killed many people, some right in front of my eyes. They tortured
many and left them for dead. Bodies were dumped in the lake
outside the centre."
For the first 17 months, his family thought he was dead until he
was moved to another jail and allowed to write home, telling his
family that he was alive but in poor health. After a while he was
granted treatment for his asthma. His family hired a solicitor to
pursue his case and began writing to Foreign Office officials to
put pressure on the Indian government.
In October 1998, police walked into his cell and said he was to
go on trial. Less than two weeks later he appeared in court for
the first time. But his case was never completed as he was moved
to another prison, hundreds of miles from the court.
Aurangzeb had to suffer another three years in prison before his
case came to court again. On May 28 this year, he was brought
before the Indian High Court to answer the original charges of
entering Kashmir without proper documents. But the case against
him was pitiful and, despite police objections, the judge ordered
his release within 15 days.
Last week, his ordeal came to an end when he was transferred to
Delhi and into the custody of the British High Commission.
"The first thing I did was call my family and tell them I
was coming home," he said.
Stephen Jakobi of the UK organization Fair Trials Abroad, who
campaigned for his release, said: "The issue here is not
what he was doing on the border, but why he was held for seven
years without charge. If we are to believe the Indian
government's allegations that he is a "terrorist" or
spy, then a Yorkshire-born teenage asthmatic seems an odd
operative. -Dawn/The Observer News Service.