Wait without end

They will wear black bands to symbolise their suffering, and will raise placards bearing but a single question: Where are our children? As they have for years past, on 29 August, on the eve of the International Day of the Disappeared, scores of people, mostly women, will gather at Sher-e-Kashmir Park in Srinagar to demand to know the whereabouts of their missing family members. Since the conflict in Kashmir began in 1989-90, thousands of 'enforced disappearances' have taken place, affecting nearly every family in the Kashmir Valley. The victim's family and friends are deliberately denied knowledge of the individual's arrest or detention, and are subjected to slow mental torture as they await information on the fate of their loved ones. This year's Day of the Disappeared marks the 25th anniversary of this annual observation, and some families have gathered in August of each of those years without news.

Traumatic though it is, confirmation of death tends to provide closure to the interminable wait. Facts Underground, a report released in March by by Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, a constituent of Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, claimed that nearly 1000 unmarked graves had been found in 18 villages of Uri, Baramulla and Boniyar of northern Kashmir. The report, which estimates that around 10,000 people have gone missing since 1989, surmises that many of the missing would have ended up in these unmarked graves.