‘I don’t want Govt’s money,I want to know my son’s fate’

The gathering is of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) – an organisation fighting to know the fate of missing persons in the Valley. The organisation alleges that there are more than eight thousand people in Kashmir who have been subjected to enforced disappearances,mostly after being picked up by the armed forces.

The group comprises of mothers whose sons,they allege,have been picked by the security forces and have gone missing since then. They never saw then again. And this group meets every month to remind the government about their pain and demand the formation of an independent commission to probe the missing cases in Kashmir.

“I won’t get rest till I meet my son,” Mughli says slowly,looking at the photograph. “I don’t know where is he,[if he is dead or alive?”

Her son Nazir Ahmed Teli,a school teacher is missing since the armed insurgency began in Kashmir in 1990s. “It was September I remember. He went to his school one day and did not come back,” she says shaking her head. Her voice is weak and she strains to hear the questions. Living alone in a crumpled home in downtown Habba Kadal has made her go deaf.

The gathering of old parents sits in a semi circle in a public park. Most of them are carrying laminated photographs of their “disappeared” sons. Apart from the haunting memories,photographs are all that have remained with them. Mughli is just one of the group.

There are many others who have travelled several kilometers to attend this meet. Taja Begum has come from North Kashmir’s Bandipora district. “We left at six in the morning to reach here,” she says. Her son Bashir Ahmed Sofi “disappeared” in 1993. He was sixteen then. “Today he would have been a grown up man.” She points towards a photograph of her son on the banner affixed on the fence of the park.

The group meets on the tenth of every month. Does it help? “I know this meeting will not bring my son back to me but I come here every month. I know I will get rest only when I meet my son there,” says Mughli in a low voice and looking towards the sky.

“We want to know the fate of our missing sons. Getting together and sharing our pain helps us get over with this constant grief for some moments at least. It gives us strength,” says the chairman of APDP,Parvena Ahangar. She is surrounded by media persons. She looks into the cameras and says,”I would fight till my death.”

Her son Javed Ahmed Ahangar,then sixteen is missing since 1990 after security forces picked him up from his uncle’s house at Batamalloo. “Omar Abdullah says that he will pay four lakh rupees to the families of missing persons,but I want to tell him that we don’t want any money,we want to know the fate of our sons,” Ahangar says raising her brow. “Only a mother understands what pain has been inflicted on her. India should set up an independent commission to probe the cases of our missing sons,” she says as reporters take quick notes.

Sitting among other women,Mughli’s eyes are still running over the photograph in her hand. She kisses it again. And puts it in a worn out wrinkled polythene bag by her side. The meet is over. The cameras are packed and the reporters leave. Outside the park,the din of routine life – the honking horns and shouting bus conductors – goes on. The group will soon disperse. Mughli will leave for her home in Habba Kadal and Taja will commute to Bandipora. Next month on tenth they will gather again.