Per investigation documents of Cizre Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the family’s testimony, the Bilir family moved from Şırnak to Cizre after Şırnak was ravaged during the Newroz of 1992. İlhan Bilir, who was serving compulsory military service at the time of the incident, spent his temporary leave at his brother’s house in Cizre. He left the house to see relatives living in Şırnak before going back to the army. When İlhan did not return to Cizre, his brother inquired of their relatives about him and learned that 2-3 unknown persons had come to the house and left with İlhan, purportedly with the intention of “letting him go in 3 days”. İlhan’s brother, who moved back to Şırnak, continued to search for him for the next 3 years, until one day in 1995, when a man named Ali came to his house and said: “I know where your brother is. Let’s first go to Cizre and then, to Northern Iraq”. The brother left the house with this man and he, too, disappeared. With the help of their neighbourhood’s mukhtar, İlhan’s sister-in-law applied to the police station, the police headquarters and the prosecutor’s office. The police briefly questioned and released the man called Ali, who, according to the sister-in-law’s findings, was a member of JİTEM. Ali maintained that he did not know what had happened to her husband after the two men went to Cizre together.

İhsan and Ramazan were not heard from again, nor were their bodily remains ever found.