Srinagar, June 12: Three-year-old Mehran Latief Mir of Shahr-e-Khaas who disappeared in 2008 might be a forgotten case for the state government, which remained clueless in the case. But the mystery has inspired a TV serial that too the one scripted by an IPS official.
 The 13 episode Urdu serial Dard Ka Rishta on air these days for the second time on DD Kashir channel, as per its writer and Senior Superintendent of Police Israr Khan, is truly an inspiration from the Mehran incident, the City boy who on May 13 2008 left his Habba Kadal home to buy candies from a nearby shop but never returned. The state police miserably failed to crack the case of the only son of his poor parents, including mother, a cancer patient.
 In a similar plot, the TV serial, acclaimed “Outstanding” by the Preview  Committee appointed Directorate General for DD Kashir Channel Commissioned Programmes, is based on the plight of girl Sarah, who at the tender age of six is kidnapped from Kashmir way back in 1998.
 The kidnappers sell the girl to a childless couple in Mumbai saying that she was an orphan from a remote area of Kashmir whose family had been killed by militants.
 Pretending to be philanthropists, the kidnappers take Rs five lakh from the couple saying that they would “use the money for the welfare of other militancy affected people in Kashmir.”
 10 years later the kidnapper is trapped and shot at when he tries to kidnap another child from Kashmir. But before dying , he reveals Sarah’s whereabouts before police.
 Sarah, now a beautiful 16-years-old girl is made to come back to her Kashmiri parents.
 “But then her dilemma is to whom should she consider as her parents? Those who nurtured her for all these years or the ones who gave her birth?” says the writer.
 But interestingly unlike most other TV serials, Dard Ka Rishta by Nighat Cinematics, a production house owned by Israr’s wife Nighat Khan Afridi, has dramatized militants in a different way.
 When Sarah goes missing, her parents receive an anonymous phone  call from persons claiming to be militants of “Al Nasim outfit” who say they have kidnapped the girl. But actually by the time the call is made, the gangsters from the port city of Mumbai manage escape from Kashmir.
 “The police official investigating the case suspects the genuineness of the call pleading that militants could do anything but won’t kidnap a child,” the filmmaker told Greater Kashmir.
 The serial is directed by Bollywood Director Jaidev Chakravorty who has number of feature films including We Are Friends, Raktbandhan and TV serials like Mahima Shani Dev Ki, Vikram Aur Betal, Aaik Din Achanak and Darr on satellite channels to his credit. The authorities, as per sources, have decided to extend the serial by 13 more episodes.
 “We wanted to make a serial which would compete with satellite channel dramas,” says Nighat whose production star cast includes prominent actor Deep Raaj Rana.
 As for her husband and script writer Israr aka Lali making the script more realistic was his “ultimate motive”.
 But what does this writer presently posted as Sambha district police head has to say about the Mehran incident.
 “I wish that the boy returns to his parents. Because I have heard the case a Rajouri boy who went missing in 1989 but after many years returned home and revealed his story of being kidnapped,” Israr hopes.

‘GK CAMPAIGN INSPIRED ME MOST’
Scriptwriter Israr Khan says the Greater Kashmir’s campaign in Mehran case inspired him the most to come up with the serial script.
“Everyday I would come across a news story pertaining to Mehran and this way the boy remained in the back of mind and I planned to ink it, my own way,” he told

Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Jun 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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