'NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND MY PAIN'

Basharaat Masood

Saja Begum has turned 82, but what keeps her life driving is a hope -- a hope that her two sons, who went missing 14 years ago, would return one day.

Masked men picked up begum's two sons Ghulam Mohidin Lone and Abdul Rashid Lone.

The story of Mohidin's disappearance dates back to 1993. On May 13, Mohidin, a resident of Hewan Baramulla left home for the shop as usual. As it was becoming late in the evening, Begum and her other son Rashid became restless. Mohidin didn't return home. Shopkeepers at Sheeri Baramulla, where Mohidin had a shop, informed the family that he was picked up by some masked men.

Begum, her son Rashid and daughter-in-law Haleema went out looking for Mohidin. "We searched for him everywhere," says Begum. "We searched in security camps, in jails, in police stations and in interrogation centres. But we didn't get any information about him." Mohidin had four children and ran the family's watch repairing shop.

When the search failed to yield any result, the family went to the police to register an FIR. But they refused. The village erupted in anger and police finally filed a missing report.

The family was still searching for the missing son when another tragedy befell them.

Hardly a year had passed after Mohidin's disappearance when another group of masked men barged into the house and took away Rashid. "It was around midnight when we heard a knock on our door," Begum recalls. "Ten masked men stood outside my house. They forced in and dragged out Rashid. When I resisted they opened fire. I was hit in the stomach." Rashid was yet to celebrate his first anniversary of his marriage.

Begum survived the bullet injury and after sometime the pain of her injury faded away but the aged mother's agony was far from over. Now, she has another job in hand--to search for her second son. "No one can understand my pain" she cries. "I have lost two sons."

The octogenarian Begum is failing her health but she has a hope - that her two sons innocent sons will return one day. "Even death can't bring peace to me," she says.