Author: Masood Hussain
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: September 10, 2003
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com:80/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=174467
The five-party coalition government
led by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has fired a bombshell that could hurt the
credibility of civil libertarians in Kashmir.
Last month, a civil liberty group
said 84 persons disappeared in custody of various security agencies since
Mufti took over November last. Top government functionaries are admitting
that they were embarrassed especially when the government was over- emphasising
the 'healing-touch' ordered investigations.
On Monday, police said they have
completed investigations into 58 cases. Of them, police traced 26 at their
homes and one in Central Jail, Srinagar.
Besides, police said six 'disappeared
persons' have joined the militant ranks as two others were confirmed to
have been taken away by militants. Five others, according to police, had
joined the fugitives and were killed in militancy related incidents.
"The investigation about other names
figuring in the list of 'disappeared persons' is in progress and every
effort is being made to establish their whereabouts," the spokesman said.
Releasing identities of all the "disappeared" in all the categories, the
spokesman said in the case of Mohammed Altaf Yatoo, a resident of Aripathan
village in Beerwah, the residents told them that no person with this name
ever lived in the village.
Says the spokesman: "Those killed
in different militancy-related incidents included Mohammed Ishaq Lone (on
the LoC at Rangwara Gali while trying to smuggle into Pakistan), Bilal
Ahmed (killed alongwith Mohammed Sadiq Mir during an encounter in Beerwah
area), Bashir Ahmed Sheikh (killed at Warpach, Ganderbal in an ambush)
and Ghulam Mohammed Wani (whose corpse was recovered in some paddy fields
at Sagam on July 23, '03). One Qasim, who had gone to Punjab, was arrested
by Punjab police at Nowshera and reportedly died there." He identified
the active militants as Abdul Rashid Sheikh, Jehangir Wali Malla, Shaheen
Ahmed, Aijaz Ahmed, Shabir Waza, and Mohammed Hanief Lone.
Claiming a four-fold increase in
"enforced disappearances," Kashmir's Association of Parents of Disappeared
Persons (APDP) on August 18 said 84 persons disappeared in the nine months
of the People's Democratic Party rule in J&K.
"These 84 disappearances in nine
months are just the tip of the iceberg," APDP patron Parvez Imroz had told
a news conference. These included 38 persons who vanished in custody of
security forces, four were untracked after militants kidnapped them, about
28 others there was no information who went missing in mysterious circumstances
and 14 others who never returned home after they were kidnapped by unidentified
gunmen. He did not rule out more cases because many cases from far-flung
areas might not have been reported at all.
As Imroz was talking to media persons,
APDP members, mostly mothers and wives of the missing, lit candles and
staged a silent sit-in to protest against the enforced disappearances.
Zahir-ud-din, an activist-journalist,
released the second volume of his book Did they vanish in thin air? on
the occasion.
After the police made the revelations,
a senior functionary of the APDP said: "We would be happy if the news about
the 24 disappeared is true. We know it is not a fact." Lacking an organised
data bank, another of his colleagues said they go on making the missing
list on basis of the complaints they receive but there are no deletions
as "nobody bothers to inform us about the follow-up."
The government informed the state
legislature in June last that 3,744 persons were reported missing till
December 31, '02. Out of these, 135 have been declared dead upto June '02.
Chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed in his intervention said that "it
was a matter of investigation and wherever there are FIRs registered these
need to be enquired into." He said the accusations being made about them
having been picked up by the security forces or the police, he assured
that government would thoroughly investigate all these cases.
"If the government is so sure that
human rights activists are wrong and whatever people are alleging is mere
propaganda, then they should accept our demand to constitute a commission
to probe all such complaints," argued Zahir-ud-Din. He said over 100 cases
are pending before courts culprits have been booked in over 60 cases.
