Two Pakistani teenagers accused of ‘facilitating the Uri attack’ in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) returned home after investigations concluded that they were innocent, Pak Media had raised the issue last year in December.
Faisal Husain Awan, a resident of Potha Jandgran in Azad Kashmir, and his school-friend Ahsan Khursheed, from Khilayana Khurd in Muzaffarabad’s Hattian Bala tehsil, were handed over to the Indian Army for repatriation after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India informed a local court that it had no evidence to prosecute them and that they are being released.
They were arrested by the Indian Army on September 21, three days after the attack in which 19 soldiers were killed, and were labeled as Jaish-e-Muhammad activists.
The personnel of Punjab Rangers received them at the Wagah Border.
Geo News in its programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’ has persistently followed the issue. Shahzeb Khanzada had disclosed that Faisal and Ahsan were Class X students at the Shaheen Model School in Muzaffarabad and had accidentally crossed the LoC.
During a hotline contact between the DGMOs, Pakistani official was informed by his Indian counterpart that the kids would be handed over at the Wagah Border on Friday.
Sharing the grief with a newspaper, Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, Awan’s brother, said both teenagers’ families were desperately waiting to receive their boys.
“How can I tell you what it has been like to see our mother start to weep and scream every night around 2 am or 3 am when her medication wears off,” he said. “People gather around her to comfort her, but they can do nothing but cry, either.”
The relatives of freed kids thanked government of Pakistan and media for helping them.
The two boys were brought to the border by the Indian authorities blindfolded as if they were militants.
