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Poonch & Rajouri matter as much as Pahalgam. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs died there too

What I saw in J&K border towns made me sob and weep. It also gave me hope.

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Sparkling white-water streams gush past high meadows. Turquoise forests slope upwards toward towering, icy peaks. Down a rocky path, herding her animals, strides a tall beauty, her blue eyes flashing like ice on fire. Jammu and Kashmir. Breathtakingly scenic and serene. Yes, tragedy and loss at every turn, but marked by quiet dignity, smiling charm, and generous hospitality.

We, a five-member delegation of public representatives from Bengal, visited the border towns of Poonch, Rajouri, and parts of Jammu from 21 to 23 May. We expected tension, unease. Instead, we found love, optimism, determination. And pride in the enigma known as Jammu & Kashmir.

On 22 April, 26 civilians were tragically killed in the barbaric terrorist attack in Pahalgam. In a glaring administrative lapse, the Narendra Modi government (now in charge of the Union territory of J&K), busy publicising its “Kashmir-is-normal” narrative, failed to gather intelligence that evil murderers lurked around Baisaran meadow. Innocents were gunned down. In response, India launched Operation Sindoor against Pakistan’s terrorist hideouts. As hostilities escalated, wave upon wave of cross-border firing began between India and Pakistan.

On the frontlines of Pakistani shelling, directly facing the lethal shells and grenades, stand the vulnerable towns of Poonch, Rajouri, and Uri. This was the first time civilian areas in these towns were targeted.

Caught up in the obsessive frenzy of TV war games, the mainstream media paid no attention to the destruction being wreaked in the border towns and villages. Nor did too many political parties bother. Twenty-six died in Pahalgam; at least 16 died on the border. Lives were lost in all communities—Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. Surely every human life, whether in Pahalgam or Poonch, is precious. But did anyone bother about Poonch? Or Rajouri?

Did anyone ask why these border villages were not evacuated when India was conducting “mock drills” in the build-up to Operation Sindoor?

Border villages are in the direct firing line during cross-border attacks, yet they remain the most vulnerable and neglected. While citizens were justifiably enraged over the victims in Pahalgam, few seemed to care about the innocents being cut down in Poonch.

Yet one leader did care. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, with her credo of “Manusher kachhe, Manusher pashe” (always near the people, next to the people), dispatched five of us—All India Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien, Rajya Sabha chief whip Md Nadimul Haque, Bengal water resources minister Manas Bhuyan, Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Thakur, and me—to the J&K border. We went in solidarity and to offer whatever help we could.


Also Read: After Operation Sindoor, let’s choose truth over TV theatre. It’s more patriotic


 

A terrifying start

Before we could even begin our trip, something else happened. Our flight to Srinagar, IndiGo flight 6E-2142 from Delhi, passed into aviation history for having its nose blown off after battling through what seemed like a cyclone-force hailstorm at 36,000 feet.

Our journey was petrifying. It was a flight in which every passenger, whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or Sikh, prayed to every available god and goddess, every known saint and shrine, at the very top of our lungs. The plane jolted upwards, then plunged downwards. Buffeted this way and that by the hurricane, it juddered eerily and seemed to halt in mid-air. Death felt chillingly close. We later learnt that the the pilot had declared an emergency.

Yet perhaps by the sheer force of our collective, diverse prayers, some benevolent force took pity on our wildly plummeting plane, and we made it to safety. We landed in Srinagar, re-born in Kashmir, the land of many saints and many shrines. Lal Ded and Shankaracharya, the Sufi saints and Sikh gurus, the land of the Amarnath cave temple and the Dargah Hazratbal shrine.

Our first meeting in Srinagar was with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, a serious and thoughtful leader. In a 90-minute conversation, Abdullah briefed us in detail about the situation in the border villages. It is an elected government that remains the primary institution designed to serve the people. Only a fully empowered chief minister and his government can properly deliver urgently needed daily governance to citizens.

After our meeting with the CM, off we went to Poonch, travelling on the picturesque Mughal Road. Poonch is 170 kilometres from Srinagar and only a couple of kilometres from the India-Pakistan border.

Shells, systemic failure, and slander

In Poonch, 13 died and 44 were injured in cross border shelling while Operation Sindoor was being conducted.

The family of Swarna Devi Thakur was asleep when a gigantic shell crashed through their bedroom ceiling, smashing up their modest home, vaporising fans and lights, and knocking out the family’s pride—their new TV. When shells fall, they thud to the ground, then rise a few feet and spin in 360 degrees, spraying splinters that tear into human bodies. Swarna Devi recalled how the family cowered in fear all through the night, waiting for the next shell to fall.

Does she ever think of leaving Poonch? Swarna Devi shakes her head, firm and unflinching.

“Never. We all live together here, Hindus and Muslims. We have lived together for generations. If need be, we will die together.”

Nobody died in the Thakur home. But just a few yards away, Amarjit Singh, a 50-year-old father of two, died when splinters pierced his lung. Bleeding, he walked to the Poonch district hospital, but the hospital did not have a ventilator, nor does it have an ICU.

Amarjit Singh passed away because the hospital could not help him. Should border areas not have better medical facilities? Should hospitals here not be staffed by better doctors? No doctor wants to come here, say  local residents—when they hear they’ve been posted to Poonch, they run away.

More heartbreak awaited us at Christ School, Poonch, a prestigious institution where generations of officers and community leaders have been educated. Twelve-year-old twins Urva Fatima (also known as Zoya) and Zain Ali, both students of this school, died on the spot when a shell hit their home. Another student, Vihan Bhargava, perished when a shell ripped through his slender frame. A fourth student, 14-year-old Rajwansh, had to have his arm amputated. Twelve years old. Fourteen years old. Dead and maimed.

We gaze on their photos: they look like blooming Kashmiri roses, peachy complexioned, shining hair. The principal tells us worriedly that parents are now too scared to send their children to school. What if another shell falls on the school building?

At the Zia Ul Uloom madrasa a respected and popular teacher, Qari Mohammad Iqbal, died in the shelling. The mainstream media, that peddler of fakery and lies, dubbed him a terrorist and spread the news that he died in Pakistan. A resident of the village says: “We still can’t understand why the media labelled Qari Mohammad Iqbal a terrorist. He had nothing to do with militancy. He loved to teach and was beloved of the students.”

Urva Fatima, Zain Ali, Vihan Bhargava, Rajwansh, Qari Mohammad Iqbal, and Amarjit Singh. In unprotected border towns, they became victims of Pakistani shelling but also of a system that has failed to provide even the most basic protective infrastructure or medical care. In a border area, this is a crime against the people.

And what is the demand now? The answer is unanimous. Border hospitals must be better equipped. There must be individual bunkers in every home. Every home must have a bomb shelter. Every family must have access to protection from shells.


Also Read: No more Raj Bhavans. We don’t need governors


 

Paying the price of war

From Poonch, we travelled to Rajouri. It was the same story among people in the town and surrounding hamlets. Heartbreak, loss, and feelings of constant insecurity and vulnerability. Yet despite their anxieties, a nobility of spirit shone through. Each family welcomed us with warmth, with food, with noon chai and fresh-baked bread. They embraced us and said approvingly, Bahut achcha laga ki aap hamara haal chaal poochne ke liye aaye (It is good that you have come to find out how we are).

Tragedies abound in Rajouri. So do optimism, courage, and the desire for peace. Raj Kumar Thapa, a highly regarded district official, was killed when shells hit his home. Imtiaz Ahmed, a daily wager, lies in Government Medical College, Rajouri, with his left arm shredded by a massive splinter. Imtiaz has three children and is the sole breadwinner.

TMC delegation in J&K
The author with a child injured during cross-border shelling, at Government Medical College, Rajouri.
Photo by special arrangement | Credit: Adil Bashir

“How will I work without my arm?” he asks. Fourteen-year-old Rafia is also in the orthopaedic ward, her left leg in plaster. “Rafia will walk and run again,” her mother tells me with a smile. “So I hope you will come back to see. Kashmir’s children are very talented, they study hard but they love to play.”

Valiant young surgeons labour day and night at GMC Rajouri, trying to save as many lives as they can. My son, too, is a surgeon. Watching Dr Zubair, Dr Irfan and Dr Javed, in their scrubs, working tirelessly—healers in a war zone, carers in an uncaring world—trying as hard as they could, with sparse equipment, to keep death away from the helpless, made my heart skip many beats.

All communities here want peace, because it is they who pay a personal price for war, the doctors say. Of the 26 injured brought to GMC Rajouri, three died.

Hope through the storm

In Jammu, some of us gathered for a small prayer meeting for the border areas. As the prayers progressed, suddenly, I experienced something akin to a dam burst. The scary plane journey, the loss of defenceless young lives, yet the exquisite warmth and hospitality of the Kashmiri people and their appeals for religious unity proved overwhelming for me. I sobbed and wept and kept on sobbing. Not just because I was sad, but because I was also somehow uplifted.

In our careening, storm-hit IndiGo flight, everyone on board had prayed to a multitude of their own gods: Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, we all prayed together, and the united force of our prayers seemed to have worked. So it would be with Jammu & Kashmir. Through storms and hurricanes, when people of all faiths pray and worship in tolerance and togetherness, a mighty benevolence reveals itself, a powerful force of goodness which brings danger-struck travellers safely home.

Jammu & Kashmir was like our plane, I thought, with people of all faiths, all religions, praying and calling for peace, for respite, for refuge. This united will is a source of hope. Jammu & Kashmir will make it through the storm because of this united faith of its diverse people. Just as a hurricane-tossed plane made safe harbour, Jammu & Kashmir too will one day make a happy landing. Of that I am convinced.

Sagarika Ghose is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)

 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Well Hindus died in Murshidabad too. They were the helpless targets of pogroms orchestrated by Jihadi Bangladeshi Muslims. The state of West Bengal, in it’s pursuit of “secular” politics, aided and abetted these murderous mobs of Muslims. These Jihadi Muslims went on an absolute rampage burning and destroying Hindu homes and villages, raping Hindu women and murdering Hindu men.
    Where were TMC MPs then? What were they doing? Why did not they reach out to these helpless Hindus – victims of Islamist violence?
    Where was your compassion Ms. Ghose?
    Shame on you and shame on your leader, Ms. Mamata Banerjee. Your party TMC will not stop until Bengal becomes a part of the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh.

  2. Murshidabad targetting of Hindus. When would TMC speak about that? What is Sagarikas role? Is she an MP of Indians? A representative of TMC? Unlike Shashi Tharoor and Asaduddin Owaisi who put nation before all Sagarika is still earning her perks from TMC. Hypocritical selective liberalism and selective secularism is her trade mark. Why does the Print pay her to write? Or does TMC pay the Print for advertising?

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