By IANS,
Jammu : Parveen Akhtar, 22, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri has gone to live with her uncle in an adjoining district to escape persuasion by her relatives and temptation to come out to vote Sunday.
Howsoever she wished, Parveen could not venture out to vote and almost “relinquished this right” after she married a top militant of her area, Abdullah Inqalabi.
“I was very excited at the thought of voting when I was in my teens and was waiting for my time, but now after marrying Abdullah I cannot go against his wishes,” she told IANS by phone in a soft Gojri accent.
“Though I have not told this to my husband, somehow I cannot help deeply loving India,” she said.
Parveen has temporarily left her home in Dhakri area in Rajouri district to go and live in Mahore in the adjoining Reasi district.
Parveen’s relatives (from Gujjar community) were all eagerly waiting to cast their votes as “it is going to be a keen contest and every vote is going to count.”
She said: “My relatives were telling me to come and vote as Abdullah would not come to know. But I do not want to lie to him, else Allah will punish me.”
Her husband, Abdullah Inqalabi is a Pakistani national from Gujranwala and had come to Rajouri over five years ago. He was operating in the upper reaches of Rajouri area and was then the divisional commander of Hizbul Mujahideen’s Pir Panjal regiment, a militant outfit active in this area.
Abdullah now is the top man of the United Jehad Council (UJC) in the area and is coordinating activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Al-Badr and Hizbul Mujahideen’s Pir Panjal regiment.
Parveen Akhtar belongs to a Muslim Gujjar (nomad) family which has not been swayed by separatist movement and has remained by and large pro-India.
“I knew the danger of marrying a militant but it was Allah’s will that I gave my consent,” she said. She added she married Abdullah of her own accord when he approached her father Mohammad Bashir.
Since their marriage over three years ago, both lived together for not more than three months in a staggered way. “He comes to meet for a few hours or at times I go at an arranged point to meet him,” Parveen said.
She does not want to go to Pakistan or get citizenship there as she says she is “fondly attached to this place.”