Kashmiri youth in Tihar jail files nomination

He wants to prove he is innocent, his family will campaign for him

SRINAGAR: Left to fend for himself, a Kashmiri young man facing terror charges and lodged in Tihar Jail has jumped into the electoral fray from Bandipora constituency in a bid to clear his name.

Mohammad Iqbal Jan, in Tihar since 2006, has been given a ticket by the National Panthers Party (NPP) for Bandipora, which goes to the polls in the first phase on November 17.

Iqbal filed his nomination through his authorised agent and will be pitted against two senior politicians, PDP’s Nizam-ud-Din Bhat and National Conference’s Ghulam Rasool Naz.

“He is innocent. I want to prove that Kashmiris are nationalists who are against the government, not the Union. There are leaders who have been chargesheeted for criminal conspiracy and still aspire to become prime minister,” said NPP chief Bhim Singh.
Iqbal, a businessman from a village in Bandipora, was arrested by the Delhi Police in November 2006 and charged with being a conduit for terrorists. The police claimed to have recovered Rs5 lakh from him.

But Iqbal said he had gone to New Delhi to clear dues of dealers from whom he used to purchase gas cylinders and pipes. He sought permission to commit suicide when he wrote an open letter to newspapers last July.

“He wants to contest the polls to fight for justice for himself and other detainees,” said Salma Jan, his sister. Iqbal was the family’s only earning member. The family sent the nomination papers to Tihar so that he could sign it before it was submitted in the returning office in Bandipora.

“Our cousins will run his campaign,” said Parvez Ahmed, a cousin of Iqbal. “One of them will tell the people why Iqbal is contesting and what he wants to achieve.”

Ghulam Nabi Bhat, assistant returning officer, said he had received Iqbal’s nomination papers. “He is only an undertrial,” he said. There are 19 candidates in the fray for Bandipora.