A series of mysterious disappearances and unexplained deaths in Kashmir has left a tribal community gripped by fear and unease

When Mohamad Sadiq discovered his son Showkat Ahmad’s body on March 16, it was covered in sores, with a bloodied eye, patchy hair, and peeling skin on the 18-year-old’s hands and legs. Just three days earlier, Sadiq had received the devastating news that his older son, Riyaz, aged 25, had also died. The two brothers had vanished a month prior. Authorities claimed that Showkat and Riyaz drowned in a canal in the Kulgam region of Indian-administered Kashmir, roughly 10 kilometers (6 miles) from their home, with postmortem reports suggesting possible suicide.

Yet, Sadiq and much of the Gujjar tribal community to which the family belongs reject this explanation. The 72-year-old father, overcome with grief, is uncertain who might be behind his sons’ disappearance and deaths—whether security forces or an armed faction—but he is adamant that foul play was involved. “This was no accident,” Sadiq cried out, his voice breaking as he spoke to Al Jazeera in an open grazing field outside his home, surrounded by relatives offering their support. “They were tortured and murdered.”

The government has dismissed these claims, but the widespread skepticism reflects a profound mistrust of law enforcement in a region rattled by a recent wave of vanishings, where bodies often surface weeks later. Mukhtar Ahmad Awan, a 24-year-old who disappeared alongside Riyaz and Showkat, remains missing. This distrust is rooted in Kashmir’s troubled past: since the armed uprising against India began in 1989, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) estimates that 8,000 to 10,000 Kashmiris have gone missing.

“My boys were savagely killed,” Sadiq maintained, unwavering in his conviction.