Srinagar: For eight long years, Bakhti has stoutly refused monetary compensation to silence her on the enforced disappearance of her son. She wants the truth, and punishment for the army officer who helped her son’s abduction.
For this ordinary villager from Trekpora in the Baramulla district, it has been an extra-ordinary decade, dominated by the memories of her son being beaten and dragged away before her eyes.
Her newly-wed son, Manzoor was dragged out from a Handwara- bound bus by renegades (commonly known as Ikhwanis) and the army’s 28 Rashtriya Rifles personnel he was traveling with his wife to visit a nearby hospital on a chilly morning of December, 22, 2001. Days after arrest, Manzoor was subjected to enforced disappearance.
“Two Ikhwanis, Qayoom and Jahangir joined by an Army officer Major Bhattachariya dragged my son out of the bus and started beating him. I pleaded his innocence, but they didn’t listen to me,” recalls Bakhti.
“When I rushed towards the Army camp to rescue my son, Qayoom hit me with a wine bottle. I received 15 stitches on my left arm,” she adds.
After arresting her son with Army’s support, Bakhti says, the Ikhwanis visited her residence and demanded a ransom of Rupees 50,000 for her son’s release. The Ikhwanis also produced a picture of Manzoor inside the army camp to gain the confidence of the distressed family.
“They showed me Manzoor’s photograph inside the Army camp. I was assured that my son will be set free, if their demand was met,” She says, adding “Days later, my son was subjected to enforced disappearance,”
Bakhti claimed that the Ikhwanis had borrowed Rupees 50,000 from Major Bhattachariya and had failed to clear the debt. In order to settle the score with the Army official, she says, Qayoom and Jahangir facilitated the arrest of her son.
“My son was not a militant but a bus driver. His married life had just started, but the cruel Ikhwanis snatched him from us,” she says, before bursting into tears.
After Manzoor’s disappearance, Bakhti says, she filed a case in the lower court hoping to get justice, but all she could manage was court hearings without any progress in the case.
“State human rights commission offered me compensation, but I declined. I don’t want money but the whereabouts of my son,” she adds.
Bakhti says that one of the accused Jahangir was shot dead by unidentified gunmen while another accused Qayoom was put behind the bars. She urged the state government to ensure stringent punishment to the accused. (PBI)