Zakir Ahmed was handed over to the J&K Police at Kanachak police station and an FIR was filed. Zakir Ahmed was handed over to the J&K Police at Kanachak police station and an FIR was filed.

Mystery surrounded the detention of a 32-year-old mechanical engineer, identified as Zakir Ahmed, a resident of Ambur in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, near the international border in Gajansoo area of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Army claimed that Ahmed was detained by “a mobile vehicle checkpost established by the Army at Marh… at around 2000 hours on May 29”, when he was travelling in an auto-rickshaw from Chakrali village on the border towards Jammu.

An Army spokesperson said Ahmed was handed over to the J&K Police at Kanachak police station and an FIR was filed.

However, Ambur DSP P Ganesan said J&K Police contacted the Ambur police station about two-and-a-half months back, seeking information about Ahmed, after he was reportedly picked up from a railway station there.

“They called us for basic inquiry and details of his identity and address. They also wanted us to send one of his relatives as they found him mentally unstable. We immediately contacted his family, who said he had left home several years ago. When we conveyed the message from the J&K Police, his parents said they would not be able to go,” said Ganesan.

“When our officers visited his parents, they confirmed that Ahmed was mentally unstable and had left home more than five years ago. They said he was a graduate with a diploma in mechanical engineering and was undergoing treatment for his mental illness in Bangalore for some time… Since his parents were not able to go to J&K, we reported the same to them,” said Ganesan.

Vellore SP Senthil Kumari also said that Ahmed’s custody was reported about three months back and J&K police officials had contacted their counterparts in Ambur.

When contacted, both Jammu SSP Uttam Singh and SP (Railways) Suram Singh said they had no recollection of Ahmed’s arrest from the railway station some months ago. “We can say anything about it only after going through our records on Monday,” they said.

Station House Officer Railway police station Neeraj Choudhary denied having apprehended any person from Tamil Nadu during that period. “I don’t think we apprehended any such person from the railway station area,” he said.

Ahmed’s father, R Nazir Ahmed, 60, said he had not met him for the last two years. “Somehow we made him study mechanical engineering from an institute in Vaniymabadi near Vellore. Then he got married. We hoped that the marriage and having a child would improve his mental illness. But even after a child, he was unable to lead a normal life,” he said.

“His wife and seven-year-old son live in Kerala now. A few years back, we took him to National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore… For almost six years, he was wandering off and I was going after him, bringing him home, before he disappeared again,” said Nazir, who lives in Haneef Nagar near Ambur.

“About three months ago, local police officials came home to inform us that he was in the custody of Army or police in Jammu and Kashmir. They wanted us to go there and bring him back. I am a mechanic and earn Rs 150-200 daily. Physically and financially, I am unable to run after him anymore… I refused to go,” he added.

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