Srinagar, May 12: May 13, 2008 afternoon three-year-old Shahr-e-Khaas boy Mehran Latief Mir left his home to buy candies from a nearby shop but never returned. Has he been abducted, killed or is alive somewhere? Nobody knows. Not even the state police, which till date, miserably failed to crack the case groping for clues it never found.
 Mehran was the only child of his poor parents – mother Dilruba, a cancer patient and father Latief Mir a mutton seller –living in Habba Kadal.
 The couple along with Dilruba’s brother Rouf Ahmed, moved pillar to post looking for their child so much so that ailing mother had to give up her life saving treatment at SKIMS. The High Court Bar Association, President, Mian Qayoom on the other hand came to their rescue, as he moved Court seeking investigation into the case by some “credible investigating agency” and not the state police.
 Meanwhile, the family kept trying to knock almost every door in the corridors of power.  But they weren’t given a chance to meet the then Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad or his deputy Muzaffar Hussain Baig. The only concern from the then PDP-Congress coalition came from the PDP President Mahbooba Mufti, who as per the family, met them and called some SSP to probe the matter. The PDP president, however, didn’t pick up the issue at any other higher level.
 But with Assembly elections round the corner, the then opposition National Conference apparently tried to gain political mileage out of the issue from its City vote-bank pockets.
 MLA Khanyar Ali Muhammad Sagar and his party colleagues from the City held rallies in Shahr-e-Khaas lambasting the then government for being callous towards the issue.
 As against mere Rs 5000 reward kept by the government for clue to Mehran case, the NC announced Rs 70,000 from the party cadres for anyone helping crack the case.
 Besides others from the party, Sagar junior and then Mayor of Srinagar, Salman Ali Sagar on June 18, 2008 had sought a CBI probe into the mysterious disappearance of the boy. Salman would frequently visit the Mehran family for consolation, which fetched some publicity to the out-of-power party.
 Pleading the Kashmiri boy’s case, the Sagars were amongst the first to link the case with the Arushi murder case, which occurred exactly three days after Mehran disappearance. Following media campaign and political will, the Noida murder case was handed over to CBI and results started coming out within a month.
 But Mehran remains a mystery. And ever since NC assumed power on January 5, 2009, nobody from the party ever spoke of Mehran. This is despite the fact that the party bagged all the eight assembly seats from Srinagar district and Mehran issue had been their cannon fodder during the pre-poll campaigning

Lastupdate on : Wed, 12 May 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 12 May 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 IST