I am only looking for my father

By Daanish Bin Nabi

As the world observed ‘International Day in Support of Victims of Torture’, Parcham brings you the story of a woman in Kashmir. Despite persistent inhuman torture, she continues her search for her father and her husband.

The 39-year-old Saba Khan (name changed) is from Boniyar, Uri. Her misfortune started soon after the onset of militancy in Kashmir. Saba has four sisters, a brother and a daughter.

Missing Father

Saba’s father went missing on May 11, 1990. He was a salesman in a cooperative ration ghat. With teary eyes, Saba says, “I and my sister had gone to meet a Pir Baba, who stays near our house. His son had also been picked up by the Army.”

Saba says that while they were talking to the Pir Baba, the Army raided his house. “When they saw my sister and me, they told us that your father has not gone home today. We were petrified and started crying. We spent that dreadful night at Pir Baba’s house. When we went to our house in the morning, we found that our father had still not returned.”

Saba says that she searched for her father everywhere, but could not find him. “I went to the District Commissioner and senior officers of the district administration, but I could not trace him. Then I filed a case against the Army,” she says.

Soon after she filed the case, says Saba, she was on the constant surveillance of the Army, JK Police, the Special Task Force and other security agencies. She says they kept a regular check on her and harassed her too.

Saba says that after this constant harassment and the armed forces coming to their house often, she met the village Numberdar and other civic officials for help. No one came forward to help the family.

“Finally, along with some relatives, I went straight to the Army. I plainly told them that I am neither a militant, nor do I have any links with any organization. I am only looking for my father.”

Saba says that instead of heeding her pleas, the Army pasted her posters in entire Boniyar. Saba says the posters read, ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’. The Army announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh for information on her whereabouts.

Panic-stricken by these posters, Saba fled in the dead of night to Srinagar, to stay with a friend who had a cloth sewing business.

Saba says that her brother had been searching for their father too, but he was brutally tortured by the Army. “He stopped searching for our father. But my search continued. That is why the Army started harassing me, so that I would give up my search, and no one would question them regarding the whereabouts of my father.”

Torture

Living in exile for few years, Saba went back to her home district Baramulla in 1995 to attend her friend’s wedding. From this day on, life became a nightmare for her.

She says, “I was attending the wedding ceremony of my friend in Malpora, Baramulla. At about 4 am, the Army raided the house, but somehow they could not recognize me. After few hours, I left with a friend for Srinagar. There is a Ziyarat (tomb of a Muslim saint) near my friend’s house. When we reached near the Ziyarat, the Army cordoned us from all sides. They were waiting for us there, and started firing on us indiscriminately. We managed to get inside the Ziyarat, but I was arrested. The Armymen hit me on my head with rifle butts and beat me ruthlessly. There is very less sensation on the left side of my head, even though it has been so many years,” she says.

Narrating her distressing tale of torture, Saba says that she was taken to Brigade Headquarters in Baramulla. “I was tortured very badly there. I would start bleeding through my mouth, but they would not stop. Rats were thrown in my cell. I was neither able to sleep, sit or stand properly in my cell. Rats ate my finger tips and feet, which was very painful and infectious. This torture went on for a long time.”

Saba’s hellish life contained even greater torment and agony for her. “They started giving me electric shocks on my tongue, knees and feet. Running a roller over my body was a routine activity.”

Asked whether she was tortured by men or women, Saba said, “I was tortured by women. I don’t know whether they belonged to the Army, police or any other security agency.”

When she was finally produced before a judge, she told him that she was only searching for her father, and had not done anything wrong. After listening to her ordeal, the judge ordered her release.

Asked whether she was sexually molested during this time in jail, Saba says that though she was severely tortured, she was not sexually harassed in Army captivity.

Showing the scars on her left hand, Saba says that her nerves were cut with blades. For two-and-a-half years, she remained booked under the infamous The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA).

She was released nearly after three years, but her ordeal did not end here. The day she was released from the sub-jail Baramulla, she was arrested by the notorious Special Task Force (STF) of J&K Police. She was again tortured and cruelly beaten. They did not let her sleep during day or night, and abused her too.

She was release from STF captivity after two months.

In 2003, Saba was again arrested by notorious STF on flimsy grounds and was lodged in infamous torture center called ‘The Cargo’ at Srinagar. This time, she was again held for three months. “I can only say this Cargo torture center is a butcher’s shop,” Saba now recalls.

Recalling those three months in Cargo torture center, Saba says, “I cannot explain how I was tortured there. They tortured me physically during the day, and mentally at night. Sometimes, three to four interrogators mentally tortured me at night, and did not let me sleep. Not a single hair was left on my head when I was in Cargo. When my mother saw me in that condition, she fainted.”

Saba says that at the Cargo, she was tortured by men, who were all Kashmiris. “There was not a single woman there. I was tortured, roughed, touched all over by males. It was hell. They even tried to sexually harass me, but Allah knows what stopped them. Lewd and sexually abusive comments from Kashmiri men was a common thing. I was not a human in Cargo. I was an animal.”

Saba was freed from the Cargo torture center after three months.

Widow Saba

As if this nightmarish life was not enough, her husband, who had been her sole source of support during these turbulent years, went missing in mid-2011.

Saba says he was a businessman and had gone to Srinagar to buy some electric material for his shop. He never came back. Saba says that her search then started for her husband. But she never saw him again.

Saba’s kidneys are damaged. She has to take medicine for her physical ailments. The excruciating torture for years has left her with deep psychological trauma, and she has to take psychiatric medicines regularly.

Saba owns a small business, and earns her livelihood from it.

My cameraman, who was taking her photographs while I spoke to her, asked her to repeat the part when she went to the Ziarat and got arrested. Saba started crying brokenly. She said, “Please, do not ask me to talk about this whole thing again. The left side of my head has started to pain.”

We got up, distressed and bewildered, not knowing what to say to her. Saba was still crying brokenly.

Published by Varmul Post on 15 Jan 2018 

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