‘I COULDN'T DARE CONFRONT THE POLICE’

Basharaat Masood

Ghulam Hassan Koka still remembers October 27, 2001. It had grown dark when there was a knock on the door of his house in Verinag, a remote village in south Kashmir.

"I opened the door to some ITBP personnel. They told me they were searching for the numbardar. My father was the nambardar of the village but he had passed away. When I told them this, they picked up my son Ashraf and left saying he was being taken for questioning and would be released soon," says Koka.

He says he can even identify the Indo Tibetan Border Police personnel. "They belonged to ITBP camp of Verinag," he says.

The family waited. After all, they said, the soldiers had promised to release Ashraf immediately. The wait hasn't ended.

A few days after Ashraf was picked up Koka says he went to the ITBP camp to enquire about his son. "At the camp, they denied that Ashraf had been arrested. It was the biggest shock of my life," says Koka.

They now had to start searching. Koka says his first destination was the local police station. "They registered an FIR but they did not mention the fact that ITBP personnel had picked Ashraf up. Instead, they wrote that he had been picked up by unknown people, says Koka.

He says he couldn't dare to confront the police. "The situation in the area was very volatile. Nobody there listened to our pleas".

"I approached senior police officers, politicians and government officials. I wanted to know where my son was. But nobody offered any help," says Koka.

Mohammad Ashraf Koka was appointed Junior Assistant in Bijbehara's Sub Judge Court five years before he disappeared.