Pakistani Boys Arrested For Uri Attacks, Released and Returned

The NIA filed a report stating that Faisal Hussain Awan and Ahsan Khursheed were not involved in terror activities.

An Army soldier takes position near Army Brigade camp during a terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo: PTI)

Two Pakistani boys who were arrested last year on suspicion of having guided the terrorists who attacked an Army camp at Uri, have been released and handed over to Pakistani authorities at the Wagah border.

The NIA had earlier filed a closure report in the case stating that the boys, Faisal Hussain Awan and Ahsan Khursheed, were not involved in any terror activity, the Times of India reported.

Also Read: Juveniles or Not? The Murky Case of the Uri Attackers’ ‘Guides’

According to the report, top officials in the government said that the boys were released as a goodwill gesture as Pakistan recently released Indian Army jawan Chandu Chavan, who had strayed into PoK last year.

The two boys, from Muzaffarabad, were apprehended by locals in Uri in September last year – days after the attack that left 19 soldiers dead and 17 others injured.

Faisal Hussain Awan and Ahsan Khursheed had been handed over to the Jammu-based 16 Corps of the army on 8 March after the probe agency came to the conclusion that the two had strayed into the Indian side after a tiff with their parents due to the pressure of studies.

The army's unit at Uri had detained them and questioned them at length after the 18 September attack on its camp in which 19 personnel were left dead when four heavily armed militants stormed the camp.

The NIA had said that the evidence collected in the form of statements, technical analysis of their mobile phones, seized GPS devices and other circumstantial evidence collected by the NIA “did not reveal any linkage of the suspects with the Uri attackers”.

The army had detained the two on 23 September, just days after the terror strike, and claimed that the two had allegedly acted as guides of four terrorists who carried out attack on the Uri garrison in North Kashmir.

The NIA had taken over the investigation in the case from the state police.

The two youths were arrested by the BSF and the army in a joint operation at 'Angoor Post at Gavalata village in Uri when they were trying to infiltrate into India.

They were also brought to the NIA headquarters in Delhi for detailed interrogation.

The NIA has claimed that terror group Laskar-e-Taiba was behind the Uri attack.

(With inputs from PTI, TOI)