Srinagar: Mother Daughter duo looking for family’s headSRINAGAR: For thirteen years, this mother-daughter duo is searching for their family’s head, who was taken under custody by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel from Fatehkadal area of Srinagar and never returned.
Naseema Akhtar and her minor daughter – Shazia Akhtar – were among those people who staged a protest demonstration on the World Human Rights Day in Srinagar on Thursday against ‘enforced disappearances’, seeking whereabouts of their beloved ones.
“I was married to a Kupwara resident Syed Anwar Shah who was a painter by profession. We were putting up in a rented house at Malapora Fatehkadal in Srinagar city. As usual, my husband left for work in 2002 and was picked up by BSF men and since then we don’t know about his fate. My only daughter was two months old when this incident occurred,” Naseema said. An FIR stands registered in police station Zainakadal about the disappearance of her husband, she added.
Naseema, a resident of Ashmuqam Anantnag (Islamabad) said that she wandered from pillar to post in search of her husband. “He was a simple person who in no way was affiliated with any militant group. I suffered immensely. Whatever property my husband had in Kupwara was grabbed by his brothers and I was forced to move to my parent’s house along with my daughter,” she said.
“We (mother and daughter) have been living with a hope that Anwar Sahab may emerge from somewhere someday. I don’t believe he has been killed. My heart says he is alive. He may be in some prison,” she said.
Thanking Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) for ‘monetary help’, Naseema said that all the expenses incurring on education of her daughter was borne out by the Association.
