Parveena Ahangar, the chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), has been receiving anonymous threatening phone calls.
A UN grant has landed the top woman human rights champion in Kashmir into trouble.
Parveena Ahangar, the chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), has been receiving anonymous threatening phone calls.
Ahangar’s son Javid Ahmad Ahangar was among the first youths to disappear in the custody of security forces in 1990.
“I have been receiving threatening calls from anonymous people who keep asking me about Rs80 lakh - which never existed. I have received only $10,000 dollars from the UN which was transferred in November,” said Ahangar.
Wary of police, the APDP chairperson said she did not lodge any complaints because of obvious reasons. “I have saved the phone numbers from which the calls were made. I will reveal those at an appropriate time”, she said.
Ahangar is undeterred by these threatening calls, and says that they will not bog her down. “I will continue to champion the cause of people who have suffered, because I have myself lost my son. I will not give up so easily,” she said.
Ahangar’s grant was the first instance of the UN sanctioning financial aid to a human rights organisation in Kashmir in over 20 years. APDP has received financial assistance under the medical, psychological and legal category.
Human rights organisations say there are an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people missing in custody. However, the Jammu and Kashmir government has contradictory figures about the disappeared people.
Figures presented in the state assembly in 2009 stated that 3,429 persons have gone missing from their homes, while only 110 persons have disappeared after arrest in the state from 1990 to July 2009. Of the total missing persons, 2,367 belong to the Jammu zone and 1062 hail from Kashmir province.
But in 2010, the government came up with another list of figures in the assembly. In a written reply to a question, the government said 1,105 persons are reported to have disappeared from the state since 1989 and around 530 cases of ex-gratia relief has been provided to the affected families so far.
APDP was among 204 organisations that were selected for the financial grant under UN Voluntary Fund for the Victims of Torture (UNVFVT) for 2010 by the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “The money belongs to the people, and will be used for rehabilitation of the suffering. The grant money will also be used to conduct the survey to prepare a database of the exact number of people missing in custody, which has started in Srinagar and Kupwara districts,” said Ahangar.
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