EVERY morning Zareefa Begum (50) leaves her home in Garcoat village near the Line of Control in Uri to collect money from the shopkeepers in neighboring localities and the Uri market. The money Begum collects is sufficient to keep her family of five members alive.

This has been a routine for this ill-fated lady even since her husband Addul Rashid Shah went missing from Uri market in 1995. The missing of Shah has left Begum's life shattered and now it is becoming hard for her to take care of her five children including a daughter.

"My husband had a dream to give his children a good education. After he went missing everything changed in my family," Begum said. "My three elder children were in the school at the time when their father disappeared in Army custody. Poverty forced all of them to shun education one by one."

Begum resorted to begging to run her family affairs. "We don't have any agricultural land. Life is becoming difficult with each passing day."

The missing story of Shah dates back to March 28, 1998, when he was on the way to Salamabad when men in civvies who were members of Army Intelligence picked him from the Uri market. "Villagers saw my husband being dumped in the Army vehicle," said Begum.

Soon after Shah was picked up by the intelligence, relatives approached to the local police and Army. But neither Army nor Police acknowledged his arrest.

On March 29, 1994 the family registered an FIR in Uri Police station. Since then police is continuing its search to trace missing Shah. "Police did little to trace my husband," said Begum. 'I don't know why Shah was picked by the Army."

... contd.