Qazi Shibli
Who are we, if no one sees us? If we disappear, do our dreams vanish as well? Or, do they remain, in the space where we had them, in the air we once breathed and in the hearts of those we touched? And if they do not disappear, then how do the imaginings of those who were forcibly disappeared persist to haunt the living? It is those haunting voices that Brazilian author Machado de Assis, in the unforgettable novella “The Mirror” captures to narrate an enthralling tale of interconnectivity.
Brazilian author Machado de Assis, in the novel-The Mirror.
When one loses a loved one to death even if brutal and untimely the promise of closure is hopeful. But when one is ripped away from everything and everyone it derives its belonging from, the ones left behind live in perpetual mourning. Reliving that moment a life was made to disappear. Like a living carcass decaying in wait. A moratorium on its life.
Afroza Begum spends most of her time praying inside her small room in the Nowhatta area of Srinagar. The woman’s faith in God is her only hope for her husband Siraj Ud Din Farooqi’s return.
Afroza is a half-widow whose husband was detained to never come back. The last 30 years of armed struggle in Kashmir have been a witness to a huge influx in the number of half-widows. In the Indian counter-insurgency actions, the husbands of these women have allegedly ‘disappeared’. These women remain surrounded with the ambiguity of identities resulting from their positions in kinship as they stay utterly unaware of whether they are wives or widows.
It was in the winter of 1992, that Siraj had been invited for a ceremonial dinner by his in-laws, the Zargars. That night, suddenly as loud abuses and threats were heard on the door, the family was forced to open it. The Border Security Force’s 22 Battalion cordoned off the house, dragged Siraj who was sleeping with his 6-month-old son Adil, along with his brother-in-law, Fayaz Zargar, bundled them in an armoured vehicle.
The entire family pleaded with the troops for the release of the duo, while Afroza who held her 6-month-old son and her daughter, tried to block the vehicle’s path, but the troopers pointing towards the little Adil, threatened the inmates, “We will shoot him dead, dare you make a sound.”
The torture that was inflicted upon the two individuals in the armored vehicle continued till they were taken into the Athena Hotel in Dal gate area of Srinagar where the BSF was stationed, like many installments in the valley after the break out of the armed struggle in the late1980s. Many Kashmiris, Afroza says, had been kept there, all blindfolded and tortured to the third degree.
“The next few days out there was a tale of hellish torture, we could hear wails and cries of men, all of them gasping for breath, crying eagerly for help, we did not know how many of them were there, but dozens, I could sense, we were not allowed to remove the cover off our face,” a survivor told The Kashmiriyat. Fayaz, Siraj’s brother in law, was released from the hotel-turned-torture center and whisked away in the dark of the night to a snow-covered forest.
He was rescued from the Poshawani Forests in Kupwara almost 100 kilometers away from the hotel where he had been detained, by the family of the JKLF pioneer, Mohammed Maqbool Bhat. “When I was thrown out of the torture centre, I asked about Siraj and they told me that he had been released.” Many days later, on his arrival home, Fayaz was informed Siraj never returned.
Since then, Afroza has confined herself to a dark room. A doctor confirmed it to the Zargar family that Afroza has been suffering from an anxiety disorder since the forced disappearance of her husband. “Since then, I have been longing for the day he knocks at the door and comes back into the house.”
A Rush of Memories and Pain
In a quiet moment, an aging mother caresses her belly as she wonders aloud when her adult son will return, her whole body at work to gestate his memory. On the eve of a wedding, women dance to funeral dirges for their dead or disappeared male kin. In Resisting Disappearance: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir, Ather Zia shows how the aggression of Forces’ permeates every aspect of life in the Kashmir Valley, transforming subjectivities and relationships
Afroza’s heart sank on January 22, 1992, the moment the troops left their house with Siraj bundled in the vehicle. She often relives that moment and from the window of her house looks at the spot she kneeled down on the street trying to stop the troopers from leaving. The spot, she says, leads to a rush of memories, anger, and pain. “It reminds me, he was taken away and has to come back home, he promised me when he was taken away.”
“I try not to sleep, but when I do, I see Siraj in my dreams,” she said. “I have been to many doctors, my heart sinks, the head gets heavy at times and I become weak.”
Years after the incident, the family holding a photo of Siraj has looked for his whereabouts in many Army Camps, Police Stations and Torture Centres. “We remember searching him along with many families whose kith and kin too was forced into enforced disappearances,” Afroza said while remembering the time the unidentified mass graves came forth in Kashmir. ” But I am still sure, he will return,” she told The Kashmiriyat. She said the last time her brothers visited a camp in Kupwara after someone told them of Siraj’s presence, “The Army men did not allow our people inside the camp.” The family ran from pillar to post in order to find a clue about Siraj, but all went in vain.
“I then found solace and hope in my prayers and I am still sure, he will come back, God is my hope.” She also added,” As the days passed, my anxiety increased as all efforts to trace him failed, I ran from one police station to another, from one known torture center to another detention camp only to be told, ‘Do not worry, he will be released.’”
The pain of losing Siraj had loomed heavy over Afroza’s head for the past 31 years, she spent countless nights crying for her husband, while she held her hands high in prayers. But one day, her son Adil was also detained, and since then, she has spent most of her time isolated in her house located in a small lane in the downtown area of Srinagar. “My son Adil used to force me to go out,” Afroza told The Kashmiriyat, “Now that Adil is in the Jail, I barely go out.” Her only son Adil is lodged in the Central Jail of Srinagar.
Adil Ahmad was arrested in the lynching case of Deputy Superintendent of Jammu Kashmir Police, Ayub Pandit on June 22, 2017. The 57-year-old policeman was according to Jammu Kashmir Police was a part of the security grid deployed for Muslims praying at the Jamia Masjid during the night-long prayers of Shab -e- Qadr. The police in its charge sheet have accused 20 people of carrying out the inhumane lynching. According to Munir Khan, the then IGP of Kashmir Range, Pandith was spotted by four miscreants when he came out of the mosque after checking deployment for access control duties.
“They called and questioned him, later demanding him to show his identity card but he refused. He was then heckled and the number of hooligans increased. He then fired some shots with his service rifle, injuring three hecklers. The mob however continued to beat him, resulting in his death. Suspicion on Pandit was raised when people witnessed him clicking photographs near a mosque,” Munir Khan said.
Fayaz was also arrested under PSA after the abrogation of Article 370. Their mother passed away after going through the mental and physical trauma caused by the harassment allegedly carried out by the government forces. Whenever there was a loud knock at the door, her body would shake terribly and she’d cry in pain, “They’ve come again. They’ll take away my children. Please do not open the door to them.”
The family alleges that they’ve been subjected to this persecution by the forces because of their kinship to Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, the chief commander of the militant group Al Umar Mujahedeen, that operates on the other side of the border. The second generation of their family is suffering due to this kinship as well.
For the past four years, Adil has been denied bail. The family has been constantly seeking Siraj’s whereabouts. Their long ending pursuit for justice continues just like that of the many other families of Kashmir.
Unending Search and pursuit of Justice
Afroza, like many other half-widows, has waited ever since for some definitive news on her husband. Siraj Farooqi is just one among the thousands of young men who have been forcibly taken away by Indian forces, and in some cases, by unknown gunmen. To this day, most of the families do not know what happened to their disappeared relatives. Unofficial estimates by human rights groups put the figure of ‘disappeared persons’ at over 8,000. By the end of the last decade, unmarked mass graves in Kashmir holding the remains of over 7,000 people were found in various parts of the Kashmir valley.
The Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons in Jammu Kashmir (APDP) has been calling for an investigation into all disappearances. The APDP alleges that more than 8,000 people are missing in Jammu and Kashmir. Though the Government in India admitted that nearly 4,000 people were missing ut also claimed that some of them have crossed to the other side of Kashmir into Pakistan and joined various Militant groups. Despite repeated Habeas corpus petitions by various Human Rights groups, the authorities have always denied any involvement or responsibility for the fate of the disappeared or their whereabouts.
Kashmir’s wails and cries have never found a space in the mainstream Indian discourse despite it meaning one of the most densely militarized zones in the world with the number of troopers put around 7,00,000 which includes armed and paramilitary forces. As per the ten-year census of 2011, The ratio of the civilians to that of the security personnel is 1:7 in the valley of Kashmir.
From Kashmir, the news that hits the chords of newspapers/ online media outlets is of people being arrested, detained, or taken away in the dark of the night, many of whom never met the fate of returning home. Prominent Political commentator and Journalist, Gowhar Geelani, in his book ‘Kashmir: Rage and Reason’ mention that people in Kashmir right from their early days of learning get used to terms as Disappearances, Catch and Kill, Custodial killings, torture, interrogation which internalizes a vocabulary that any child should not be privy to otherwise.
“We ask the Indian Government, where have our loved ones disappeared? We want them to find our dear ones, because their forces took them away from us” Afroza said. “We have lost our dear ones, we are not here merely for tourism, The world must know how we (Kashmiris) grieve”, Afroza says.
Until the beginning of last year, the APDP, an organization of the parents of relatives of the disappeared gathered at a public park in Srinagar for a peaceful sit-in. But public gatherings have been made difficult after the Indian state abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir last year in August.
The woman behind APDP, Parveena Ahanger, has a story similar to Afroza’s and many other women in Kashmir. Her 16 year-old-son, Javeed Ahmad was arrested allegedly by Government forces during a nocturnal raid and he never returned home.
She formed the APDP after a chance encounter with a human rights in 1994. The organization started reporting cases of enforced disappearances. Their data claims that out of more than 8000 persons who went missing, 2,000 were married.
Regardless, Ahanger is determined to keep fighting as long as she lives.
I have not disappeared.
The boulevard is full of my steps.
M. Jackson