INDIAN OCCUPATIONA L TROOPS KILLED HIM IN CUSTODY

Srinagar, Jan 17: It was on this day in 2002 that troopers of Army’s Rashtriya Rifles picked up a chemist, Manzoor Ahmad Dar, at Hyderpora here. For the past six years, his family vainly tried to locate him in security camps, interrogation centers and jails. His family now pins hope on the chief minister Omar Abdullah who has promised zero tolerance to human rights violation. “It is my right to know what happened to my father and it is the government’s responsibility to locate him,” Dar’s daughter, Bilquees, told Greater Kashmir. On this day in 2002, Bilquees said, the troops of RR led by Major Kishore Malhotra barged into her house. They asked her father to accompany them. “We pleaded before the troops to leave him as those days it was their modus operandi to kill people after picking them. However, they dragged my father and bundled him in their vehicle. That was the last time when I saw him,” she said with moist eyes. “If my father has committed any crime, tell us. If he has been killed let us know where his grave is. I make a fervent appeal to CM to help us to get justice,” she said. Dar’s family went to Police Station, Sadder, which refused to register an FIR. People of Hyderpora alongwith the family staged demonstrations for days together to protest against the indifference of police. “However, our neighbors were scared when Major Malhotra reached the spot saying, ‘you can’t harm me, do whatever you want.” Some days later, the troops picked up Manzoor’s two friends and a youth. However, they were released after questioning. One of the youths after his release contacted Dar’s family saying he had met him in some camp at Lethpora in Pulwama district. “He (Dar) has been severely tortured. I could only talk to him as he and I were blindfolded in a cell. Later, we were separated,” Bilquees quoting the youth as saying. She said after a few months a caller identifying himself as Brigadier Baldev Singh asked her family to reach a camp at Airport. Bilquees alongwith her relatives went to the camp. Baldev Singh gave her Rs 2500 “for pursuing education” and said he has deputed teams to locate her father. However, Baldev Singh refused to help the family after a newspaper carried a story that cost of a human in Kashmir is Rs 2500. After a few months, the family received another call. The caller identified himself as an IB officer and asked the family to identify the accused troopers who had picked up Dar. Accompanied by her uncle and mother, Bilquees said she boarded a car without a number plate at Rangreth. The family was taken to a camp on Airport where some officers asked them description of the troopers who had apologized to them. “My mother even demonstrated how the trooper had apologized. However, one of the officers objected saying the trooper did not apologize in such way. We realized that the officer would have been part of the team which picked my father. Fearing for our life we kept mum. The officers told us they will release my father on the condition that we will not raise hue and cry or file case against Army. They asked us to wait for their call,” she said. “Army only wanted to hush up the case,” said Bilquees’s mother Jana. “Our life has become hell. I am so afraid after my husband’s custodial disappearance that I have asked my sons to remain away from the case,” she said “We have faced tough times. Our close relatives distanced themselves fearing that troops might harm them. At times, we did not have even food to eat. However, we reserved every penny for locating father,” Bilquees said. The family had also knocked the doors of Court. The Court had summoned the accused Major Malhotra who according to the family has been promoted and posted as a Colonel in Assam. Despite summons and warrants, Army has not produced the accused Colonel before Court, the family said.