Booked Under UAPA, Kashmiri Youth Gets Engaged  Inside Prison.

27-year-old son Mohammed Yaseen Rather arrested over allegedly raising ‘anti national’ slogans at a Muharram procession last year, got engaged inside the prison in a 15 minute ceremony.

Last year on the 8th day of Muharram (August 17, 2021) carried out a procession in Srinagar reciting Marsia in praise of Hazrat Imam Hussain (AS).

Shortly afterwards clashes were reported between Shia mourners and security forces in several areas of Srinagar.

Journalists who were covering the Muharram processions at Jehangir Chowk, Srinagar, were assaulted by the police.

Meanwhile, the police arrested several Shia mourners as they were marching towards the Lal Chowk. However, the arrested mourners were released the same evening.

Seven months later, on March 07, some of the mourners from Srinagar’s Gund Hassi Bhat receive a call from the local police station asking them to present themselves. And so they do, only to be detained at the police station on the very evening they showed up, and to be booked under the Unlawful Activity Prevention Act (UAPA) for allegedly raising ‘anti-national’ slogans during the procession.

Yaseen Rather (27) is one among the eight Shia mourners who’ve been booked by the Jammu Kashmir police under UAPA. He was supposed to get engaged on March 30, but a couple weeks before his engagement, on March 08, he was arrested.

‘Heartbroken’

“He’s the eldest among us, siblings. We had so many hopes and desires for his engagement, which was also the first engagement in the family. All of us are heartbroken,” said Yaseen’s relative, while talking to The Kashmiriyat.

Meanwhile, the family of Yaseen’s fiancée had made all the preparations and informed all the relatives about the engagement, which made it difficult for them to postpone it, he added. “Almost 4-5 of us went to the Kothi Bagh police station and requested the authorities to get my brother engaged. They allowed us to perform the ceremony there itself, as they freed Yaseen for fifteen minutes within the jail premises,” said the relative.

“All we were allowed to do was apply Mehandi on his hands. So we inscribed a holy recitation and prayer.”

“None of the women folks from the family were allowed in the police station. It was only us, the male members. 4-5 of us, who were let in,” Yaseen’s brother said to The Kashmiriyat. He said that it looked less of an engagement and more of a mourning. “Nobody even smiled other than him, and back home my mother and other womenfolk spent their time lamenting,” he said.

The family says that Yaseen’s arrest has left them in utter distress and that they’ve been anticipating his release since his detention. He was the eldest brother among the five siblings, which include three sisters and two brothers.