Srinagar: The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons(ADDP) led by Pervena Ahanger Monday held a silent protest against the continuous disappearance of their loved ones and the callous approach of New Dehli and the State government in tracing out their family members, subjected to enforced disappearance since 1989 across the state.
APDP Chairperson Parveena Ahangar while talking to Valley Media Service said that the main aim of their protest is to make the world community aware of the plight of people of Kashmir.
“We don’t want money or anything. We only want our disappeared. We have no hope from the government, and we will continue to seek the whereabouts of our disappeared till we are alive,” Ahanger said.
“We want to draw the attention of international rights groups for intervening and mounting pressure on India to provide whereabouts of our missing family members,” she added.
She said that despite being a signatory to the international conventions against human rights violations, India seems less bothered to deliver justice to those families whose loved ones were arrested and then subjected to enforced disappearances by security agencies here
The family members of disappeared youth castigated the successive governments for being indifferent towards their pain and agony. “Neither National Conference nor PDP did anything for them to trace their missing loved one. If BJP will trace our loved ones dead or alive, we will certainly then support this party,” said an elderly woman whose son according to her was picked by Border Security Forces during a crackdown 18 years ago and since then she doesn’t know about his.
Wearing white head bands with names of disappeared people written in black, the relatives participated in APDP’s proposed sit-in program to draw attention of the government and the media to seek information about their loved ones, who have vanished, presumed dead or imprisoned without trial or record.(VMS)