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Majority of 'disappeared persons' in Kashmir
innocent: Study
Monday November 26, 2012 11:57:06 AM,
Sheikh Qayoom, IANS
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Srinagar:
A study on families of disappeared persons (DPs) in Jammu and
Kashmir has thrown up some startling data: more than 72 percent of
those who disappeared after being picked up by security forces or
militants in the last 23 years were innocent civilians.
The term 'DPs' is used to describe those people who were picked up
from their homes or other places in the presence of witnesses,
family members or friends, on suspicion of being militants by
security forces or by separatists on suspicions of being police
informers and were never seen again.
The study, titled 'Disappeared Persons and Conditions of their
Families in Kashmir', was supervised by renowned sociologist B.A.
Dabla and supported by the J&K chapter of Action Aid
International.
The study encompasses over 700 cases of DPs in Kashmir and
discusses some of them in detail.
The study says the majority of DPs, that is 99.84 percent, were
males and usually the sole earners for their families.
Most of them (83.33 percent) were in the age group of 21 to 35 and
37.14 percent of them were married.
Although the disappeared were predominantly from the Muslim
community, Hindus and Sikhs formed 0.75 percent of the DPs in
Kashmir.
But only 22.42 percent of the DPs had militant affiliations while
a majority of them (72.72 percent) were innocent civilians, the
study claims.
Dependants of the DPs are known as half-widows and half-orphans as
in the absence of their bodies, the existing legal system is
unable to declare the wives as widows or the children as orphans.
"In the absence of the male authority in the families of the DPs,
loss of patriarchal authority has resulted in social
disorganisation," said Dabla, principal investigator of the study.
"The resulting maladjustment, social isolation and segregation
gave rise to deviance within these families and juvenile
delinquency outside. Thus crime thrived and got a social basis,"
he said.
In addition, the study reveals that social segregation and taboos
attached to the families of DPs have given rise to health problems
such as hyper vigilance, fallback, sleeplessness, nightmares,
trauma and other emotional complications.
"Over 42 percent of the respondents of our study admitted they are
experiencing nightmares," Dabla said.
The study reveals that families of DPs have been complaining of
irritability, muscle tension, melancholy and aggressiveness.
"The problem of violent behaviour was quoted by 13.28 percent of
the respondents," Dabla said.
The major implication of the psychological problems among members
of DP's families has been drug addiction (23 percent).
Also, an increase in diseases otherwise unknown to be associated
with psychological complications has also been seen among the
families of DPs.
"Respondents identified an increase in diabetes, vision
impairment, hearing impairment, renal and gastric problems besides
arthritis," Dabla said.
In its conclusion, the study makes a strong case for improving the
lot of the families whose dear ones disappeared due to one or the
other reason.
"The primary reason for the social and economic deprivation of the
family members, especially the wives and children called
half-widows and half-orphans, is because they have no legal status
and cannot claim rights as widows or inherit properties as
orphans.
"After they landed in their present predicament, the members of
these families have not received any positive and sympathetic
response from either the state or society," the study says.
(Sheikh Qayoom can be contacted at sheikh.abdul@ians.in)
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