Missing PhD scholar’s family holds protest in Srinagar

Hilal Ahmed had gone missing in Wangat area of Ganderbal district, where he had gone for trekking with friends

ISLAMABAD:

Family members of a missing PhD scholar, Hilal Ahmed, once again held a demonstration at Press Colony in Srinagar, demanding of the authorities to trace their kin in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJ&K).

According to Kashmir Media Service, the protesters, several women present among them, were aghast over the long period of disappearance of Hilal Ahmed and demanded his safe return at the earliest.

Hilal Ahmed had gone missing in Wangat area of Ganderbal district, where he went for trekking with his friends on June 14. He remains untraced since then and the family has repeatedly staged protests to know his whereabouts.

The news of the PhD scholar’s disappearance comes at a time when a series of brutal encounters by Indian forces have taken place in the occupied valley in which number of innocent people have been martyred.

Earlier this month, shocking image of a toddler sitting on the bullet-riddled, bloodied body of his grandfather stirred up outrage in the IIOJ&K and elsewhere in the world.

On June 10, five Kashmiri freedom fighters were martyred in a dawn firefight with hundreds of occupied troops in Occupied Kashmir.

Indian forces have intensified human rights violations against Kashmiri people since a coronavirus lockdown was imposed in March.

Since January, at least 229 people have been martyred during over 100 military operations across IIOJ&K, according to the Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a rights group.