Srinagar
In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, India has robbed the family of renowned liberation leader Mushtaq Zargar of almost all its male members by subjecting them to enforced disappearance.
On 12th April, 2021, Zahoor Ahmed Zargar, the youngest brother of Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, the sole bread earner of the family, was forcibly taken by the police without any warrant while he was attending his shop in the Nowhatta area of Srinagar.
“Why are we raising our sons, the police come and take them whenever they like,” complains his sister Afroza, who is wife of enforced disappearance victim, Sirajud Din.
The tragedy began in 1990 when Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar decided to join the resistance against India’s illegal occupation of his motherland. This led to many raids on his family members. The first raid was conducted in 1992.
The raid ended with the forceful disappearance of the eldest brother Fayaz Ahmed Zargar and his brother-in-law Sirajud Din, who on the night of the raid had attended his in-laws.
“More than 30 years have passed but we have only seen raids and abuses, but for what? Why are we being treated like this? We have no fault.
First, they took my husband and brother, and then in 2017, they took my son Adil Siraj and my nephew Dawood Zargar.
They said they will release them in four days as soon as the air thins with Burhan Wani’s word everywhere, but they didn’t and it has been 5 years now. Adil was 20 and Dawood 15 at that time.
We were hoping that our sons would by now take responsibility but I fear they would meet the same fate as their uncle and father.
If that was not enough they took my brother, the youngest one in the family and now the only bread earner,” said Afroza Begum while talking to media.
“Our brother, Fayaz, who by the horrors and the tortures, he has been through when he was forcibly taken away back in 1992, is not the same person.
He is asthmatic and is bed ridden, with his oxygen saturation dropping after he tested Covid positive.
We have no other male in the family. And they took my brother also. Our neighbors are by some ways helping and asking us if we need anything. But that is not the way to live,” she said.—KMS
