Missing youth: PDP govt files chalan against three officers

For the first time in cases relating to forced disappearances, the PDP-led coalition government in J-K has filed a challan in the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court against three National Security Guards (NSG) officers accused in the custodial disappearance of a youth in 1990.

The three — Major S.N. Gupta, Major Dinesh Gupta and Major S.C. Kotoch — had allegedly arrested Javeed Ahmad Ahangar on August 18, 1990 after they raided his house at Batamaloo. Four years ago, the Union Home Ministry had refused to prosecute the three officers on the ground that there was no sufficient evidence to prove their involvement in the disappearance of the youth.

The state government, through the challan, has asked the Director General, NSG, whether the accused are to be tried by the General Security Guard Court under the NSG Act or by the civil court. The DG, NSG, has been asked to intimate the court by or before April 5, 2003 in this regard.

Ahangar is the son of Parveena Ahangar, a leading human rights activist and chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons.