Mother's love compels Kashmiri footballer who joined armed struggle to return home

Anantnag football star Majid Irshad Khan's mother Ashiya Begum had appealed to her son to come back

Majid Irshad Khan, a top footballer of Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) who recently took up arms to liberate the disputed valley from India, has returned home after listening to his mother's appeal.

In a video that went viral on social media, Ashiya Begum, Majid's mother, can be seen distraught and in tears, urging her son to come back, BBC Urdu reported.

"I am waiting for him to come back. I want him to return home and play football again," his mother said in the video.

Majid's mother Ashiya Begum: PHOTO COURTESY Hindustan Times

His father was also admitted to a hospital after he suffering a mild stroke on Tuesday.

On Friday morning, Majid went to a security camp and turned himself in.

Majid with his team. PHOTO: FACEBOOK

 



Some media reports quoted the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, the separatist organisation Majid had joined, as saying that it had itself allowed him to return to his mother after hearing her appeal.

A district-level footballer of Anantnag in the southern part of held-Kashmir, Majid joined the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba a few days ago. He was a second-year under-graduate commerce student at the Government Boys’ Degree College, Anantnag.

PHOTO: FACEBOOK

Majid broke the news about his joining the group through a picture on Facebook holding an AK-47 that went viral on social networking sites.  “Why [to] look up at the stars when the biggest star is me,” he wrote in his post.

The 20-year-old is a renowned footballer of the town and had passed class 10 and 12 board examinations with high scores.

Two months prior to taking up arms against Indian security forces in Kashmir, Majid’s friend, Yawar Nisar, who joined the Hizbul Mujahideen in July this year, was martyred in an encounter with the forces on August 3.

The young footballer at his friend Yawar Nisar’s funeral. PHOTO: Facebook