First time the place has been tarted up for decades

“First time the place has been tarted up for decades.” Today Ho Chi Minh City, to give it the title bestowed by the northern conquerors, looks almost the same as it did in those fateful days of April 1975. What galvanised locals and and expatriates was the arrival of Michael Caine plus production team for the remake of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. What galvanised locals and expatriates was the arrival of Michael Caine plus production team for the remake of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. Sniffing around Old Saigon for any snippets that might encapsulate past and present, I learned that one of the most interesting events of the past three or four years had been essentially cosmetic. She even applied to the office of the Indian Prime Minister at the time, Atal Behari Vajpayee, for help. “All Vajpayee gave me was the bus fare back to Srinagar,” she says.”I don’t know what happened to him I don’t blame anybody. But I still believe he is alive and he will come back to me some day.

Sometimes my son asks me in the night, ‘What will we do if Dad comes back?’ Then I cry and I can’t sleep the whole night.”For her, and for all the half-widows, the waiting goes on.. She is so poor she had to put two of her children into an orphanage after her parents-in-law threw her out of their home in Uri “They told me, ‘Go to Delhi and work in a brothel. You can make more money there,’” she says.But the only orphanage was in Srinagar, four hours’ drive away. Unable to bear the long drive to see her children, Tahira left her home village and moved to Srinagar, renting this pitiful little room for 500 rupees (£6) a month so she could visit her children once a week.She went to Delhi to try to trace her husband But she discovered nothing. Shyly giggling, they draw their veils across their faces.Tahira makes only 1,200 rupees (£14) a month.

But on 11 December 2002, Mr Rather disappeared without trace Tahira does not even know if he was arrested. He left on the bus for a job interview in Delhi, and was seen briefly in Srinagar, on the way, but after that he was never seen again.Today she is living with her four-year-old son, Sahil, in a room that measures just 3m by 1.5m. It is living room, bedroom and kitchen, and it doubles as Tahira’s workplace. She works as a beautician, and when we call there are two clients in her room. They eloped when Tahira was only 16, and she had to lie about her age to get married at a register office – the marriage age for women in India is 18.”We used to eat from one plate,” she says, smiling gently as she remembers “My husband called me Fara; it was a love name He never wanted to go anywhere without me It was love at first sight. He sent his mother round to my family to ask for my hand, but they refused. Then he told his family if he could not marry me he would take poison.”The young lovers ran away and were married.

The US embassy declined to comment but well-informed Western diplomatic sources say the US is in favour of the proposal and believes that it would help Mr Abbas to fulfil his stated intention to eliminate militant violence.Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, met Mr Abbas yesterday, but appears to have shelved a plan to deliver 50 armoured patrol vehicles to the PA after similar Israeli resistance.Israel has been demanding that the PA disarm wanted militants before it hands over security control of three more West Bank cities. She founded her own NGO, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP).Without Ahangar’s work, it is unlikely the outside world would have heard of the plight of the half-widows. The authorities officially admit to 3,931 cases of disappearances in security forces’ custody. APDP says it has at least 8,000 in its records.Most of the half-widows met their husbands through arranged marriages.

Tahira Rather is an exception – and that makes her story perhaps the most poignant Her marriage to Tariq was a love-match. She has pursued her son’s case relentlessly through the Indian courts She is still waiting for a final judgement. She says Indian officials offered her a million rupees (£12,000) to drop the case. She refused.As the case dragged on, she started to hunt down the relatives of other disappeared people, and take their cases up as well. But unlike others whose relatives had disappeared, she decided to fight. “I warned him many times to cut his beard.”In the corner, Shaqila’s father-in-law, Ghulam, breaks down and weeps. You can see his shame at crying in front of us.Most of the half-widows have been able to take their cases to the courts only because of the work of an extraordinary Kashmiri woman, Parveena Ahangar.