The family members of two out of the three arrested suspects have rejected as “far from reality” the claim of Muzaffarabad police that they were involved in a 2009 suicide attack on Muharram procession in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) capital.

On Wednesday, Muzaffarabad’s Additional Superintendent of Police (SP) Asif Durrani had produced three masked men before the media, claiming that the trio was behind the suicide attack outside Imambargah Pir Alam Shah Bukhari on December 27, 2009, in which eight persons were killed and another 60 injured.

Identifying the alleged suspects as Malick Ashfaq, a resident of Sarriyan village near Muzaffarabad, Omar Farooq Shah, a resident of Chilyana village in Neelum valley, and Khaqan Mughal, a resident of Bani Langrial village in Jhelum Valley, Durrani had further claimed that they were arrested from three different places in Muzaffarabad on February 7.

However, relatives of Omar Farooq Shah and Khaqan Mughal told media persons on Saturday that the claim was “absolutely false,” as their kin were in the lockup of City Police Station Muzaffarabad since the first week of December 2016.

“Perhaps the additional SP did not consult the concerned Station House Officer before speaking to the media, or else he would have known that these persons were already in police custody for the past 65 days,” said Syed Abdul Qadeer Hussain, elder brother of Omar Farooq.

“They (police) just entered his arrest in their record on February 7, but he was under detention in City Police Station since December 3, 2016,” he added.

Qadeer, a prayer leader at a mosque in Murree, was accompanied by his aged father Syed Hayat Ali Shah, younger brother Syed Tayyab Hussain Shah and an elder sister who declined to be named.

He emphatically said that his brother, who earned his Masters in English degree from the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in 2015, had no connection with terrorism or terrorists.

“We condemn terrorism in its all forms and manifestations… Had he been a terrorist, we would have asked for an exemplary punishment to him… But he is not,” he said.

Qadeer told that his brother was first arrested by some intelligence agencies from the town of Daska in Punjab in 2014.

However, a court in Mirpur (AJK) cleared him of all charges and he was released on January 12, 2015, he said.

But on April 4, 2016, when Omar Farooq was on his way to Rawalpindi in a public transport vehicle, some sleuths offloaded him near Kohala and took him in their custody.

“We came to know about him in the first week of December last year when someone from the City Police Station Muzaffarabad called and informed us that he was in their custody,” he said.

Qadeer claimed that the police told them that the agency – a reference to the intelligence agencies – had cleared him of the charges and had asked them (police) to release him after completion of formalities.

“The police said they have formed a committee for the purpose and will release him any day now ... But that turned out to be a false promise,” he said.

Qadeer said all those days the family members would meet Omar Farooq in police lockup regularly.

“However, we were shocked when we heard about additional SP’s media talk about him.”

Sitting next to him, Abdul Majeed Mughal, father of Khaqan Mughal, had an almost similar story to tell.

He said his semi-literate son, who used to do odd jobs in Rawalpindi to eke out a living, was arrested from his Bani Langrial village in the wee hours of April 14 last year.

He said that around nine weeks ago, he received a call from City Police Station, “asking me to come and collect my son.”

“But when I went there, they asked me to wait for a few days … And that wait did not come to end until I learnt that he has been framed in a heinous crime,” said Majeed Mughal, also a prayer leader in his village.

He told media persons that all those weeks he used to meet his son in City Police Station.

Last time he met him was Feb 6, two days before additional SP Durrani’s press talk wherein he claimed that they had been arrested on Feb 7.

“My son can be anything but a terrorist,” he said.

Both families said they also had also been footing the bills of a bistro near police station, which would provide meals to their detained kin thrice a day.

On the insistence of media persons, they also obtained a receipt of the amount they had paid to the hotelier for food.

Qadeer said he knew terrorism was a menace and must be eliminated.

“There are agencies, if they cite a single occasion, a single speech or a single piece of writing by my brother that establishes his connections with terrorism, we will stop asking for his release,” he said.

“But for God sake don’t victimise hapless people for promotions and rewards.”

When Dawn contacted SP Durrani and sought his version on the issue, he stuck to his earlier claim, saying that they had been arrested on Feb 7 with the help of intelligence agencies.

“Some new disclosures will come to fore in a couple of days which will clarify many things,” he said.

When questioned as to who they had been feeding in police lockup over the past nine or so weeks, Durrani said there might be some other relatives of theirs in the lockup.