India: Kashmir’s „Half-Widows“

For the past twelve years, Naseema Mehja-ud-din has been waiting for news of her missing husband.

Naseema says he was picked up by security forces one night in 1997 in a round-up of suspected militants fighting New Delhi’s rule in Kashmir.

A mother of two, she is one of Kashmir’s hundreds of „half-widows“ — women whose husbands disappeared after arrest by Indian security forces.

[Naseema Mehja-ud-din, „Half-Widow“]:
„I am waiting for my husband to return and I will keep waiting for him. I will not re-marry. The only thing that keeps me going in life is the hope that he will come back one day.“

Since a separatist revolt broke out in 1989, up to 10,000 people have gone missing after being arrested, according to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, an independent group in Kashmir.

The wives now live in limbo, unable either to close an old chapter or to start a new one by re-marrying, leaving them labeled „half-widows“.

Officials say most of the missing have crossed into Pakistani Kashmir for arms training.

Indian troops, engaged in fighting over 19 years of insurgency, have been accused of murdering innocent civilians in staged gun battles and passing them off as separatist militants to earn rewards and promotions. But charges have not always been substantiated.

A heavily militarized Line of Control divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, with both claiming the scenic region after having fought two wars over it.

Most „half-widows“ are from lower-income Muslim families and according to a court ruling cannot remarry for at least seven years after their husbands go missing.

[Parveena Ahanger, Founder, APDP]:
„The court has taken out an order that for seven years half-widows cannot re-marry. They know they can re-marry after seven years, but they don’t agree to marry after seven years. Some of them have three, four children. They know that no one will look after their children, so they don’t re-marry.“

Without proof of death, „half-widows“ are not eligible for government compensation, nor can they claim the property of their husbands.

Indian authorities, who put the missing at between 1,000 and 3,000, say they are now planning to provide relief to Kashmir’s widows and „half-widows“.

(NTDTV)