SRINAGAR: Scores of men, women and children appeared in Press Enclave in Kashmir capital Srinagar on Monday, seeking whereabouts of their loved ones, allegedly forced into disappearance by security forces during the past two decades.
With utensils, which the families said were once used by their missing members, displayed infront of them, the protestors sat on the ground carrying photographs of their loved ones.
One of them was Gulshan Banoo from Gangbou, Batamaloo. She wanted to know about her son, Manzoor Ahmed Dar, who went missing in 1997.
“He was a shopkeeper who was picked up by 20 Grenade RR personnel in 1997 when he was returning to his home,” she said.
Ms Bano said Manzoor was taken to an Army Camp located in nearby Bemina area and “when we paid a visit there we were told to come back the next day to take him along with us”.
According to rights groups, there are about 10,000 missing persons in the Valley.
But when they went again the army officers simply denied having arrested the man. “Since then We have been roaming from pillar to post to have a glimpse of him,” she says.
She says that her son was not a militant and his arrest “surprised us”. “We have spent a lot of money all these years search for him. I have lost my eyesight while his father recently had a paralysis attack.”
Another woman from Palhalan, Pattan in north Kashmir said security forces picked up her husband, Bashir Ahmed Hajam in 1992 and after that “we never heard from him again.”
According to rights groups, there are about 10,000 missing persons in the Valley.
However, only contradictory figures have been given by the government from time to time, and no authentic official figure exists.
And there has been no positive response to protests by the families.
