Freedom

Salam Alaykum, guys. It's time for another rap. I'd really like you to take the time to read this rap. it's called Found Peace.

When I sank right to my knees
Ordered to submit defeat
Held down by my head
Strap restraining my eyes
All I knew was fear
I knew he was gloating
From death I could be near
Yet he didn’t seem to care
I thought that I was worthless
Imprisoned by the world
Rolled right on the floor
That’s when I dared to dare

But then I stared right into your face
You thought I was still in the race
You stretched your hand out to me
Helping me walk across the sea
For the first time I felt I was strong
I had a place where I could belong
I knew I could breathe and I could smile
I felt the wind brush passed me with ease
Turned the page and I'd found peace

The Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley has been beset with violence as Indian security forces confront huge rallies by Kashmiris calling for independence from India. The BBC's Soutik Biswas speaks to families and friends of some of the victims.

In a picture taken on a mobile phone 10 days before his death, 25-year-old Imran Ahmed Wani fixes a shy gaze at the camera with a disarming smile.

As his friends tell it, Imran was an average young Kashmiri man, working hard, playing cricket, and watching Bollywood films.

He also exemplified those in the region's new generation, trying to make the best of opportunities thrown up by a modest economic boom during the years of relative calm since Indian and Pakistan signed a ceasefire in Kashmir.

This is a rap/poem whatever you want to call it that I've written. Please don't imagine me in some bling-bling! I don't do that stuff. Have a read and tell me what you think. It's called True Freedom, it may scare some people, but tough luck. Tell me what you think.

The drugs, the clubs and all the booze
Gave me the buzz, the notion of being full
How much money you had, or whether you could pull
The media, the magazines set the expectations
Making you think it was the aspiration
But that was before I got the news
Of the Truth, the Right and the only One
I've moved on since the old days
Left the idea of artificial fun
Learnt to correct those ways

Despite all the times that I've gone wrong
I've been blessed with the will to stay strong

www.majedsblog.wordpress.com

By Majed Iqbal- “They appeared normal, just like any other family,” Guenter Prameiter, who runs a bakery just down the street, said. “They had a swimming pool in the garden. We would hear them [the children] laughing, the three of them,” said a third.

These were the comments raised by neighbours describing the Austrian father who kept captive his daughter Elisabeth, now 42, in three windowless underground rooms ever since she disappeared in 1984.