Jobs & milk to helping the stranded — how a CRPF helpline became a lifeline for Kashmiris

Since Pulwama, a CRPF centre in Srinagar has got up to 400 calls a day — with requests to get milk for those hit by curfew to bringing stranded Kashmiris home.

CRPF officials at the Madadgar helpline centre | Moushumi Das Gupta/ThePrint

Srinagar: It was three days after the Pulwama terror attack, and Junaid Rather, an engineering student in Uttarakhand, was stranded in Jammu, one among hundreds of Kashmiris driven away from different parts of India with threats of violence.

They were all desperate to get home, but there was a curfew in Jammu amid instances of communal violence, and they were scared and at sea. Someone brought up the ‘Madadgar’ helpline run by the CRPF for distressed locals, 14411, and Rather thought of trying it out.

The CRPF team running the helpline asked Rather about his whereabouts, and the details were passed on to a battalion posted in Jammu. A CRPF trooper soon reached the site and found some 340 stranded Kashmiri students.

Gul Junaid Khan, the 28-year-old CRPF assistant commandant who heads the CRPF helpline centre | Moushumi Das Gupta/ThePrint

“We provided them food and, in the next few hours, arranged six buses to bring them back to Srinagar,” said Gul Junaid Khan, the CRPF assistant commandant in charge of the helpline since its inception in 2017.

The phones at the CRPF Madadgar centre, a small room where six CRPF personnel handle calls at any point during the day, have not stopped ringing since 14 February, the day they lost 40 of their colleagues in one of the worst terror attacks India has ever seen.

Receiving up to 400 calls a day, the helpline emerged as a lifeline for Kashmiris across the country as they navigated the hate kicked up by a local’s involvement in the terror attack.

Zahoor Ahmed, a resident of New Plot Jammu, vouched for it.

“There was curfew in the city for three days, and we had run out of milk and food,” he told ThePrint.

“My children were miserable and crying. I could not venture out because of the hostile atmosphere,” he said. “I called my friend who told me to call 14411,” Ahmed told ThePrint on the phone from Jammu.

Soon after receiving Ahmed’s call, the CRPF team informed its 166 battalion in Jammu, which was located nearby. A CRPF jawan landed at Ahmed’s house within a few hours with milk and food items.

“I can’t thank the CRPF enough,” Ahmed said. “Never once did it occur to me that I am a Kashmiri Muslim and might be denied help.”

Zulfiquar Hasan, the CRPF inspector general (operations), said the helpline hadn’t stopped working for even a day after the attack.

“Despite the huge casualty that we suffered in Pulwama, our men were on the job 24×7, receiving calls from distraught locals and Kashmiris stuck outside the state, and providing immediate help,” he added. “That’s the nature of our duty.”

Train timings & jobs

Run by a team of 21 personnel, Madadgar was set up in 2017 to offer assistance to locals amid the disturbance Kashmir witnessed in the months following Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani’s killing in July 2016.

“We felt that there has to be some system in place where people can voice their concerns,” said Hasan.

The Madadgar centre is run by 21 CRPF officers | Moushumi Das Gupta/ThePrint

“That’s how the idea of setting up the helpline came. As it is, our men are deployed across Kashmir, from districts to the remotest villages,” he added. “We just decided to tap it and reach out to the people.”

Since its inception, the helpline has received around three lakh calls, with people also calling in at times for relatively trivial inquiries.

“Locals call up to complain about water shortage, bad roads, seek information about train timings and recruitment in the CRPF,” said Khan. “Then there are the more serious calls, like people living in remote areas asking for urgent medical help.”

CRPF personnel, said Khan, regularly went to remote areas to pursue calls for medical help. From providing medicines to transporting those needing urgent medical intervention to hospital, the CRPF coordinates everything, he added.

“We also bear all the cost — from transportation to the medical intervention that is required,” Khan said. “For civic complaints, we inform the local administration. A regular follow-up is done with the local authorities till the complaints are resolved.” .

Appeal reaches beyond J&K

With its popularity growing, the helpline has started getting calls from outside the state as well, especially from young girls complaining about harassment. In such cases, the CRPF gets in touch with local police.

In January, for instance, 24-year-old Pooja Yadav called the helpline from Jaipur. Yadav, who is preparing for civil services, wanted to report a man who had been calling her up frequently and sending lewd messages for six months.

According to Yadav, she had first tried to approach Jaipur police and the local women’s helpline, ‘Garima’, but did not “get a positive response” and the calls continued.

“I then remembered seeing a programme about some CRPF helpline on TV. So, I Googled it and dug out the number,” Yadav told ThePrint on the phone from Jaipur. “I called and told them about the harassment.

“I don’t know what transpired, but since I called the helpline, I have not received a single call from the man who was harassing me. I am so touched by their prompt intervention,” she added.

Yadav has since passed on the CRPF helpline number to all her friends.