THIS missing story is one of the latest in the long list of Kashmir's tale of disappearances. The story reads the same as the emotions and agony of the family and their efforts to trace the lost members is no different from the numerous others that have been reported.

It is about Shabir Ahmad Dar, a resident of Noor Bagh in Srinagar.

Thirty-five year old Dar was associated with the separatist group Salvation Movement. On the morning of July 1, 2005, this young member of the family left home to participate in a party rally. He was obeying orders from his party, said sister Farida. But like many others, Dar never returned.

Farida has been leading her family's search to seek whereabouts of missing Shabir. "It's not an old case," she says. "And if security agencies cooperate, my brother can be easily traced," she claims. "He has been kept captive only for his political affiliations."

Admitting association of her missing brother with a small separatist party, one of the constituents of the moderate Hurriyat Conference, Farida says that it was his affiliation with the separatist group that led to his

disappearance.

Recalling the day, she says that her brother left Noor Bagh residence early in the morning once he got the message to reach Raj Bagh office of the party. "It was the last time we saw him," she said adding that once in the evening when her brother failed to reach home they started looking for him. "According to his friends he left soon after the function was over," she says.

... contd.