Click to play videoPoonch: In Jammu and Kashmir’s border districts of Poonch and Rajouri, it’s an endless wait for the parents of young boys who went missing in the last decade of violence and terrorism.
Many, barely between 12 and 15 years, were reportedly taken across the border into Pakistan for terrorist trainings.
The latest figures compiled by security forces have put the numbers of missing minors at over 91.
Shafeeq Hussain was one of them. As a 12-year-old, he was picked up by masked men in 2001. His mother Gulzar Begum says the class VII student was taken across the border by suspected terrorists for training.
“I have kept his books, his uniform with the hope that he will come and use them. It has been six years have not seen his face. We just want him to return,” she says.
Few houses away from Gulzar Begum, Talab Hussain's 14-year-old brother Shakeel was also one among those who went missing. The elder siblings in the family were lucky to escape.
“He was a class VII student and the youngest in the family. Two men came in locked us in the room and took him away,” Talab remembers.
Police say minors are easy targets. “This is the tender age and persons who across (the border) think these (children) are better motivated and are better to carry on the militancy. So they them,” says DIG Rajouri (Poonch), PR Manhas.
The affected families too are pressing for a policy to bring back the youth.
“In some cases, the parents tell us their children are contacting them and want to come back. For the children who are across there is a policy under consideration by higher authorities but till that decision is taken we have surrender policy where even hardcore terrorists have come to the main stream,” says Manhas.
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