Living in Terror in Kashmir - Essay Example

Martyr It was a pleasant day in the Poonch district of Kashmir. It was warmer than usual but the warmth added to the morning energy of people. It wasjust like any other day for the people going about their chores. The city was used to early start and early wrap up due to security reasons. There was an alert of a probable terrorist attack on the city but such alerts were now a common thing to the residents there. Kashmir faced such alerts and such attacks almost on a daily basis; nothing could stop life from bustling. People still got married, they still had children knowing that they might not live another moment. One would feel that they had forgotten the terror revolving on their heads. But the truth was that they had learnt to live in terror. The bus-stop was as usual crowded with waiting passengers. Second last in the queue was a boy who kept opening and shutting the lens of his camera while standing at the bus stop. The big, black camera hanging from his neck was the only thing he was carrying. A lose black t-shirt and a pair of worn out baggy jeans pants were hanging over his thin body frame. Natural goatee marked his chin and his face was colourless, ghostly white. He would be barely out of teens but his demeanour gave his face the maturity of forties. He turned the camera around, slapped it a couple of times and tried to adjust the lens again. ‘Journalist?’ asked the man standing next to him in the bus- queue. He studied the ageing face of the man for a few seconds before he answered, ‘Yes’. “Waiting for 69-B?” This time the boy gave the man a long stare before he answered, “Yes”. Just as the man opened his mouth to ask another question a bus arrived at the bus stop and the entire queue of six-seven people started moving towards it. The boy managed to squeeze his way to the middle of the jam-packed bus with the man virtually on his shoulder. Though it was a pleasant morning in the Poonch district of Kashmir, the insides of the bus were boiling due to the crowd. Wailing infants and shouting women were adding to the heat. Conductor of the bus rushed towards the new entrants and started handing out tickets. The boy took the camera out of his neck and started rummaging for change in the pockets of his pants. ‘Ramkund Temple’, said the boy and handed out the change to the conductor. ‘Ramkund Temple’, said the man, and passed a friendly smile to the boy. The boy ignored the smile and kept staring at nothing outside the bus. The man tried again to strike a conversation. ‘Which newspaper you work for?’ ‘Kashmir Sehar’, the boy replied without looking at the man. ‘What story are you currently working upon?’ The boy looked at him calmly and said, ‘I can’t disclose before it’s sent for publishing’. ‘Fair enough- fair enough! I was just asking out of curiosity ...actually my son was also a journalist. He got shot while covering the Kargil war...’ ‘I am sorry...’ ‘No-no, I don’t regret it, he died bravely like a warrior, though he was a common man. He was just about your age and used to carry the same type off camera around his neck. I am really proud that he died on duty, serving the nation....Do you know, he revealed the exact hideout of the enemy to the Indian army unit posted there just before he died? The Government of India has bestowed Gallantry Award on my son... posthumously. It’s just that I miss him too much and cannot stop myself when I see somebody like him....,’ the man’s voice trailed off as he wiped the corners of his eyes with his hands. The boy’s eyes turned to stone and he kept staring out of the bus window. ‘By the way, my name is Habibulah. Yourself?’ ‘Ramkund Temple!’ the conductor announced which enabled the boy to ignore the question. He started moving with the bunch of people proceeding towards the exit gate of the bus. The boy got down the bus and started walking in the opposite direction. By the time Habibulah got down, the boy was already five feet away. ‘Hey chap...Oh boy...,’ Habibulah called after the boy but the boy kept walking at a fast pace. The bus had started off again. The man looked at the departing bus and then ran behind the boy. He caught him in another few seconds and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder to stop him. The boy was alarmed for a second and then he heard what the man was saying. ‘Boy ...you left your camera in the bus! G..’ ‘Boom!!!’ The man was cut short by a loud explosion. The earth shook beneath his feet and he whirled around out of instinct than any clear sense of the happening. He got fixated to the spot where he was standing. His hands hung loose by his side and the bag on his shoulder slipped down to the ground. The bus from which he got down barely a minute back, was engulfed in flames and patches of human bodies, bags and metals were strewn on the ground. Suddenly there was a huge uproar as people started coming back to their senses. The cries, wails and noises were deafening. The shutters of the shops were being pulled down abruptly, people started running in all the directions...some towards the burning bus while some in the opposite direction. It took him some time to realize that he just got the second lease of life. He turned around and tried to recollect himself without noticing that the boy was gone. The boy, escaped from the place immediately as the explosion took place. He walked quickly in the opposite direction, turned to the first right and got into a waiting car. Another man got from another side and the car took off. ‘Done, Aslam Bhai’, said the boy to the man sitting beside the driver on the first seat. For the first time since his bus journey, his white cheeks flushed with colour and his ears started burning. ‘We heard it’, replied Aslam Bhai. ‘Who was that man and what was he talking to you?’ asked the man who got into the car after the boy. The boy’s cheeks flushed a little more before he said, ‘I don’t know’. ‘What was he talking to you?’ the same man asked again. ‘He was asking some shop address. Before I could answer, the bomb blasted’. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Shahzad Bhai, I told you- I don’t know who he was and which address he was asking. I escaped the site as soon as possible’. This time Shahzad did not say anything. After twenty minutes of fierce drive, the car stopped in front of a dilapidated house which looked unoccupied since decades. All four of them got down the car. ‘You go inside Irfan,’ ordered Aslam Bhai to the boy. The boy looked uneasy but decided to obey. From the corner of his eyes he could see Shahzad and Aslam Bhai moving away from the house and the car. Irfan was called to the dungeon after half an hour. Inspite of the broad daylight, it was pitch dark on the stairs to dungeon. A man carrying a lantern was walking in front of Irfan, showing him the way. The dungeon was lit by two kerosene run lanterns. There were four chairs in the room, all occupied. Irfan gave a cursory glance to the room and he shuddered with fear. He has always feared that dungeon. Whatever be the temperature outside, the dungeon was perennially cold. He always felt that death lurked in the dungeon which made it cold. He looked at the chairs and found Aslam and Shahzad sitting on the corner most chairs. Just beside Shahzad Huzoor was sitting who headed the terrorist outfit for which Irfan worked. Beside Aslam, Maulvi Saahab was sitting who was the most important advisor to Huzoor. Irfan bent down and said ‘Adaab’ to all four calm faced but terrorizing men sitting in the dungeon. Huzoor and Maulvi Saahab acknowledged the greeting with a nod while other two ignored. Huzoor coughed for a while before starting the conversation. ‘Good job Irfan! It was a real big job for a beginner, but you handled it well’. He paused and then continued in the same calm tone, ‘However, Shahzad was telling that somebody stopped you when you got down from the bus. Could you please elaborate on it?’ Irfan’s eyebrows went wet. He wiped few beads of water from his forehead before he said, ‘ As I told Shahzad Bhai, I don’t know the man. He just asked me some address but immediately the bomb blasted and I escaped him... There is nothing to worry Huzoor...Trust me.’ ‘Hmmm,’ the old man mused. ‘Now I will tell you something. Think over it and then answer to my question in the light of information that I am going to give you. When that man was talking to you on the bus-stop at Ramkund Temple, Shahzad was standing right beside you. You might not have noticed him due to your obvious state of mind, but Shahzad heard every bit of conversation. Now tell me your answer again.’ Irfan’s sweating became too obvious. He kept staring at the floor, trying to control his tears. Impulsively he fell down on his knees and started crying. ‘I beg your pardon, Huzoor! Please forgive me!’ he cried. ‘ I lied because I thought you would unnecessarily get worried about the man recognizing me.’ ‘It would be my decision whether I find an event necessary or unnecessary.’ The calmness on his face betrayed the turbulence in his heart. ‘NOBODY SHOULD DECIDE IT FOR ME, UNDERSTAND!’ the old man shouted. ‘ Trust me, I hardly spoke to him...’ ‘Don’t give lame excuses...’, he was cut short by the old man even before he could complete. ‘ I have no time for hearing why you lied to us! Do you understand Irfan that we are all here for a purpose?’ ‘Yes, I do.’ ‘And you realize the sanctity of purpose?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you agree that if required we should kill ourselves to defend that pupose?’ This time Irfan gulped some air before answering a meek yes. ‘So then you should understand this also-there are two things regarding you which have put us in the spot of botheration. First you lied to us. This is not expected of a member of our organization- we would better kill ourselves than lie to our comrades. Secondly, we will all be at risk if that man recognizes you as having planted that bomb in the bus. ‘ ‘Huzoor, it is my first mistake Huzoor. Even God forgives the first error. Please Huzoor...’ ‘What if that man gives your description to police?’ ‘I don’t think that he would have realized that there was a bomb in the camera. Moreover, there is hardly any chance that I will meet that man again, leave alone that he might recognize me,’ Irfan tried to defend himself in failing voice. ‘Irfan, I thought that after five years of rigorous training in our outfit, you would have learnt by now that we do not take chances.’ The old man paused took a deep breath and said, ‘I am disappointed in you, Irfan. I took you to be the gem of all ; gem you are indeed but only in skill. You are weak in character and you know that I value character strength more than the strength in arms. I am feeling sorry in losing you but I no other go Irfan- I cannot risk the entire organization just for you. Ta...’ ‘No, Huzoor!’ wailed Irfan, ‘You can not do this to me,! You told me once that I am like your son- will you kill your son for such a small thing?’ ‘See! Even now you fail to understand the gravity of the issue!’ exclaimed Huzoor. For the first time Maulvi Saahab interrupted,’ I would want to have all doubts cleared from the mind of Irfan... Nobody here should feel that justice is denied to him.’ Irfan looked with wet pleading eyes to Maulvi Saahab who gave a smile to him. ‘ Sure, before you die you have every right of all the answers you seek.’ Huzoor’s eyes were flashing red with anger. ‘First, I will kill anybody who seems to be a danger in my mission- yes- even my own son. I am doing all this for God and God will not forgive any kind of partiality-Second, lying should not and is not tolerated in this place- You have failed my trust’, he said all this in one breath and gasped for air after he finished his speech. ‘I cannot say anything further’, he continued, ‘ Aslam! Take him away’, and the same calmness , with which he started the conversation, spread on the old man’s face again. Next day’s Kashmir Times carried the news of bomb blast in a moving bus at Ramkund Temple in which fifty people died and ten were critically injured. Gory pictures of the dead and injured filled the front page of the newspaper. The police was clueless regarding the perpetrators of the crime. All they could conclude in twenty four hours was that the bomb was actually a time bomb and seemed to be made by an expert. But how and when that bomb entered the bus was yet to be arrived at. But Habibulah was not reading the front page. His eyes were stuck on the second page of the newspaper which carried the photograph of an unidentified youth who was found shot dead on a lonely road leading out of Poonch. Habibulah knew that face, he was the same boy with the camera he met yesterday in that fateful bus. ‘What happened’ , asked his wife, ‘ You look so shocked.’ ‘Did I tell you about a boy yesterday who looked like our son?’ ‘Yes , you did. I wish you would have invited him home... even I could have seen him.’ ‘He is dead’, said Habibulah in a flat tone. ‘What? How?’ ‘God knows. He was found shot dead on the road.’ Habibulah took a gulp of water before continuing, ‘Poor chap. He was working on some secret story. Who knows if that story took his life...’ ‘Another martyr in the name of patriotism....’ sighed his wife. Read More