SOON after his father went missing, Javid Ahmad says he had to leave his village in Kupwara district for Srinagar.

Javid says being the eldest of the family he had to work for his mother and minor brothers.

His father Amir-ud-din Lone would go to Punjab in winter along with some villagers to make some extra money, says Javid. In the winter of 1992, Lone left the village but did not return. "For the first three months, we thought he was working in Punjab or Himachal Pradesh. By the spring of 1993, all other villagers started returning. But my father did not," says Javid.

The family started asking villagers who had accompanied Lone. "All of them said they hadn't seen him. We were shocked," says Javid's brother Wali, who now also works as a daily wager. Lone was a 40-year-old then.

The villagers had contradictory versions about Lone's disappearance. Some said he had gone missing in Kupwara soon after he left the village while others said he disappeared in Punjab.

"We did not bother to register a missing persons report with police... Nobody was there to guide us. We asked the villagers to help us trace our missing father. But no one was ready to leave work," says Javid.

The children started working as domestic helps in the village. "We did not even have enough to eat.. Even today, I don't even have enough money to file a case in J-K High Court or with the State Human Rights Commission," says Javid.