J&K Police constable Nelofar Tariq, 28, had disappeared on February 28, 2006, and was believed to be dead
SRINAGAR: While the whole world thought she was dead, J&K Police constable Nelofar Tariq, 28, who had mysteriously disappeared two years ago, was in marital bliss.
When she was finally located at Nagrota-Jammu and taken into custody by the Jammu and Kashmir crime branch on Saturday, she had changed to Mrs Anjali Kumar, wife of fellow police constable Deepak, a Kashmiri Pandit.
The discovery of the “dead” woman came as an embarrassment for Nelofar’s family, which had been all through accusing the police of “murdering her in cold blood to cover up some shocking facts”.
Nelofar had disappeared from her workplace on February 28, 2006. A month later, police fished out a decomposed body from the Dal Lake and buried it at the graveyard at Dalgate. Her husband Tariq Ahmad and mother Shameema refused to believe the body was Nelofar’s and after much hue and cry, got the Srinagar deputy commissioner to order its recovery for DNA testing. On March 10 last year, the body was finally exhumed for a DNA match with the family.
Investigations have revealed Nelofar, who has a child from her first marriage, had eloped and married Deepak Kumar in court soon after her disappearance. She now has a 14-month-old kid from her second marriage.
Nelofar did not show up through the huge protests that rocked Kashmir after her disappearance, forcing her family to approach the state human rights commission, which, considering the sensitivity of the matter, ordered a crime branch probe.
“We have brought her here for questioning. Her statement was recorded before the magistrate. She will be let off because there is no legal provision to stop anybody from marrying or remarrying,” said Abdul Gaffar Malik, senior superintendent of police, crime branch.
Malik said her parents were also summoned and they had identified Nelofar. “We proved that the family’s claim that Nelofar was killed by police was untrue. She remarried at her sweet will. We brought her here and presented her before her family which identified her,” he said.
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