SRINAGAR: The family of Liyaqat Ali, a Kashmiri man whose arrest has triggered a controversy, have alleged that he is being forced to admit that he indeed plotted an attack in Delhi.
While holding a protest demonstration at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in northern Kashmir’s Kupwara district, they said he was in need of immediate medical treatment as his health was failing.
Liyaqat Ali, a resident of northern Kashmir’s Lolab area, was arrested on March 20 after he returned from Pakistan and entered India via Nepal with his family.
Delhi police say he was an active militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen plotting a strike in New Delhi ahead of the Holi festival. The arrest sparked a row as the authorities in Kashmir contended the Delhi police saying Ali was a former militant and that they had all the information about his return from Pakistan.
He was on Saturday last sent to judicial custody till April 12 by a court in Delhi.
Inayat Ali Shah, the brother of Liaqat, who had a meeting with him before he was sent on judicial remand, told a local news agency “He requested me to take him out from the Cell. He told me that he is being tortured day in and day out while the Delhi police are persuading him to change his statement.”
“My brother wept and told me that Delhi Police is forcing him to admit that he was arriving to Delhi to plan a terrorist attack. He told me that he will die in the lock up and the Delhi Police treating him as an animal,” Inayat told CNS.
The Shahs demanded that state government take immediate steps for his release.
However, commissioner of the Delhi Police Special Cell, Sadanad Srivastav refuted the allegations.
“The statement of his brother is totally baseless. Recently a well-known national daily claimed that Liaqat is very happy in custody and the biggest thing is that he is in judicial custody right now,” Srivastav told the agency.
