MAJID JAHANGIR
On October 3, 1990, eight-year-old Javeed Ahmed Dar was playing cricket at a Rajbagh locality when he was picked up for daring to hurl a stone at moving vehicles of the CRPF, according to his friends.
Javeed was the youngest to have disappeared in custody in Kashmir.
"I remember that autumn of 1990. All schools were closed as Eid Milad was being observed. That day, my eight-year-old son was picked up," recalls Javeed's mother Suriya of Ladroo village of Sopore in Baramulla district. "It was Javeed's friends who narrated how he was picked up by a security patrol near Rajbagh."
It was the desire to give quality education to Javeed in Srinagar that attracted his grandfather Abdul Aziz Bhat to Rajbagh. The family secured his admission to a private English medium school. Their dream of providing Javeed good education remained unfulfilled.
Soon after Javeed was picked up, Suriya shifted to Rajbagh from Sopore and began the search for her son. "I stayed at my parents' house at Rajbagh for two years to locate my son. We went everywhere, visited every jail. But could not locate him," says Javeed's mother.
The family approached the then Senior Superintendent of Police, Counter-Intelligence, Kashmir and senior CRPF officers in Srinagar. One of the police officers, Suriya says, told the family that Dar was lodged in the Airport interrogation centre. The family immediately went to the interrogation centre, but could not trace him.
"We also met the then advisor to the Governor and he instructed the agencies concerned to inform us about Javeed's whereabouts," says Suriya. "But he could not be located."
The family turned to local shrines with only one prayer: "Allah will help the family find Javeed."
"We have been passing through a traumatic phase for the past 17 years. We are a poor family and only Allah knows how we have spent these years," says Suriya.
But she has not given up the hope of meeting her son. "I still have the firm belief that I will meet my son who must be a young man now," she sobs.
On October 3, 1990, eight-year-old Javeed Ahmed Dar was playing cricket at a Rajbagh locality when he was picked up for daring to hurl a stone at moving vehicles of the CRPF, according to his friends.
Javeed was the youngest to have disappeared in custody in Kashmir.
"I remember that autumn of 1990. All schools were closed as Eid Milad was being observed. That day, my eight-year-old son was picked up," recalls Javeed's mother Suriya of Ladroo village of Sopore in Baramulla district. "It was Javeed's friends who narrated how he was picked up by a security patrol near Rajbagh."
It was the desire to give quality education to Javeed in Srinagar that attracted his grandfather Abdul Aziz Bhat to Rajbagh. The family secured his admission to a private English medium school. Their dream of providing Javeed good education remained unfulfilled.
Soon after Javeed was picked up, Suriya shifted to Rajbagh from Sopore and began the search for her son. "I stayed at my parents' house at Rajbagh for two years to locate my son. We went everywhere, visited every jail. But could not locate him," says Javeed's mother.
The family approached the then Senior Superintendent of Police, Counter-Intelligence, Kashmir and senior CRPF officers in Srinagar. One of the police officers, Suriya says, told the family that Dar was lodged in the Airport interrogation centre. The family immediately went to the interrogation centre, but could not trace him.
"We also met the then advisor to the Governor and he instructed the agencies concerned to inform us about Javeed's whereabouts," says Suriya. "But he could not be located."
The family turned to local shrines with only one prayer: "Allah will help the family find Javeed."
"We have been passing through a traumatic phase for the past 17 years. We are a poor family and only Allah knows how we have spent these years," says Suriya.
But she has not given up the hope of meeting her son. "I still have the firm belief that I will meet my son who must be a young man now," she sobs.
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