On the 10th of every month, a group of people, weary but resolute can be seen, holding pictures, banners and placards in Pratap Park, Lal Chowk, Srinagar. The lines on their faces, the grim, gloomy aura, the suffering eyes, the cry of their misery. These people, enduring hardships, leave their lives behind to assemble in this peaceful, silent protest.
The faces are both strangely hopeful and hopeless at the same time. They with their silent accusing eyes demand the whereabouts of their kith and kin who were subjected to alleged disappearances since the 1990s.
The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), an internationally recognized human rights organization, was started by the iron lady of Kashmir, Parveena Ahanger. A mother, whose teenage son was taken by the ‘security forces’ on August 18, 1990, and never returned home.
Parveena Ahanger’s quest to trace her son for the past 30 long years has taken this unlettered woman to connect to her kindred souls. Her journey has become the epitome of every parent who is looking for their disappeared loved one.
She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 2005 for her strength, determination for human rights activism.
Every Kashmiri household has a similar story of loss and tragedy. APDP has become of the leading organizations representing the subaltern voiceless people of Kashmir.
APDP has been documenting enforced disappearances in Kashmir since 1989 and has been demanding an independent investigation on the excesses done by the Indian forces here.
The organization also demands a comprehensive forensic examination of 7000 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves.