Gulam Mohammad Sofi, a Kashmiri handicrafts trader, was allegedly arrested in Kathmandu on August 12, 2000.
“ We started looking for him in different jails and interrogation centres in the country after the news of his arrest reached us after three weeks. But we were not able to trace him. My husband has died of the shock [accompanying] our son's disappearance ”
Zubaidi, a 65-year-old Kashmiri widow
"The authorities told us that my son had been arrested in Nepal and later handed over to some unknown intelligence agency," said Zubaidi, who began a protest in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir Monday.
"We started looking for him in different jails and interrogation centres in the country after the news of his arrest reached us after three weeks. But we were not able to trace him. My husband has died of the shock [accompanying] our son's disappearance," she added.
According to her, the family registered a complaint with the state human rights commission on August 24, 2001.
"I called on Mufti Mohammad Syed when he was the chief minister. I also urged Omar Abdullah to look into my son's case when he took over. But nothing has been done to trace my son. Perhaps, nobody understands the pain of a mother," she alleged.
Zubaidi's family has been in the handicrafts business for generations. According to her, there had been a business dispute between her son and two other Kashmiris in Nepal before his disappearance. "I suspect the involvement of those two persons in my son's disappearance", the mother alleged.
[/img][/COLOR]
