Militants told, claim minor status if caught by security

Srinagar/New Delhi: Declare your age below 18 years if you are caught by security personnel — this is a new diktat Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyaba sent to its cadre in Jammu and Kashmir.

Details of this LeT tactic was given by arrested militant Mohd Naveed Jutt alias Abu Hanzala, who was subjected to age determination test as he had claimed to the interrogators that he was 17 years old. After prolonged interrogation, Mr Jutt, whose age turned out to be 22 years, said his ‘masters’ across the border had instructed him to give his age as 17 years.

The arrested militant said that the LeT top brass has been telling the new recruits, who are mainly school dropouts or have criminal background, that they should behave as someone who is below 18 years so that they are tried under the Juvenile Justice Act and not the Indian Penal Code. The maximum punishment under Juvenile Justice Act is three years.

Mr Jutt, a Multan resident, was arrested in the third week of June from south Kashmir where he killed several policemen, said that he had come along with six boys in October, 2012 through North Kashmir’s Keran sector.