A dreaded Hizbul Mujahideen commander’s son, a Class 12 student, unfurled the tricolour at his house in Jammu’s Kishtwar town on the eve of Independence Day. Adnan Butt participated in the Har Ghar Tiranga movement following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to the people. Adnan is the son of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Mohammad Amin Butt alias Jahangir Saroori of Saroor village in Kishtwar district. Saroori is the longest-surviving militant in Jammu, having been active in the Chenab Valley region comprising Kishtwar, Dida and Ramban districts since the early 1990s. Wanted for attacks on police and security forces as well as civilians, he carries a reward of Rs 50 lakh on his head. Tricolour in hand, Adnan said, “I am the son of Jahangir Saroori and I am participating in the Har Ghar Tiranga movement as per an appeal by Prime minister Narendra Modi to people across the country.” He also appealed to his father to come back. “We miss you very much,” he said. Admitting that his father has trodden a wrong path, Adnan said that he wants to be a veterinary doctor. On January 25, a former militant of the Agarkar-ul-Jehad-I-Islami, Sher Khan, unfurled the tricolour at his house in Segdi Bhata village in the same hilly district on the eve of Republic Day. A dreaded name in the district between 1998 and 2006, Khan had spent 13 years in jail before he was released in 2019. “I was abducted by Pakistani militants and made to join their ranks when I was 20,’’ he had said, adding that he soon got disenchanted with them and, on the first available opportunity, surrendered along with his six accomplices before security forces in Awantipora in 2006. Living with his second wife, Shaheena, and two daughters—Sumaiya (19) and Khaleefa Bano (17)— Khan regretted the time he had been an active militant, saying that militancy had ruined not only his life, but his family also. He married Shaheena when he was still a militant. While his son dropped out of school after Class 8, his daughter Sumaiya left studies after Class 6. His youngest daughter, Khaleefa Bano, was, however, in Class 10. “I was misled on a wrong path and as soon as I realised it. I persuaded my accomplices and surrendered along with them and joined the mainstream,’’ Khan said. “Now, I am prepared even to die for the country.’’ Khan, however, said that he had not got “even a single penny from the government” since his surrender, adding that he now worked as an MGNREGA labourer to support his family.
