Uri terror attack case: No proof that accused are minors, NIA says

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said it is yet to see or receive any formal papers contesting the age of the two accused arrested in the Uri terror attack case and claiming them to be minors.
The two youths hailing from Muzaffarabad in Pakoccupied Kashmir —Faisal Hussain Awan and Ahsaan Khursheed, whose age is entered as 20 years and 19 years in the NIA records —were arrested by the agency on September 26 and charged with having facilitated infiltration of the four terrorists who attacked the Army’s Uri camp on September 18.
“We cannot go simply by media reports. As per the statement given by the two alleged guides after their arrest, they are adults. So if a counter-claim is to be made, the person concerned or family member may approach us directly or the court. We will verify the counter-claim if required. Alternatively, the court may be requested by the aggrieved party for medical tests to establish the age of the accused,” a NIA official told TOI. “Until we receive any formal claim, we will stick to the findings of our probe so far, which says that the two arrested ‘guides’ were tasked by Pak-based terror commanders to facilitate the four Uri attackers in crossing the LoC prior to the strike. During their interrogation, they had also identified one of the four attackers as Hafeez Ahmad, resident of village Dharband in Muzaffarabad,” said the officer.
Reports in a section of the media had quoted Awan’s brother on Thursday as claiming that the two accused were at home the day before the attack. It claimed that school documents mentioned the age of both the boys as 16, making them minors entitled to special protection under the Juvenile Justice Act. Though it is not clear on what date the two turned 16, an investigator did mention that as per the amended Juvenile Justice Act, if the two were already 16 on the day of the crime, they could be tried as adults given that terrorism, which they are accused of, is a heinous crime. “Their being 16 or 18 makes no difference to the gravity of the offence allegedly committed by them. Provided they turned 16 prior to the Uri attack, it would make little difference to the case of the prosecution,” said an officer.
Intelligence officials did not rule out the said school documents being “forged” or even “arranged” with the help of Pakistani state actors to weaken the Uri case being investigated by NIA. A senior NIA functionary denied that the route taken by the attackers had been retrieved from the damaged GPS set recovered from the encounter site. TOI had earlier reported that despite best efforts of the NTRO and FBI, the data from the GPS could not be retrieved .