Four years ago, we had shifted from our home in the old city, to the peripheries, the northernmost urban expansion of Srinagar, which had started to be converted from orchard lands to sprouting habitations, especially for those fleeing the chaos of the city, that had just started to be ignited into flames by violence. With the valley in general and the old city in particular, starting to sink into a perpetual loop of mindless violence, Dad had early on decided to migrate as far from the city core as he could. In a tearing hurry to escape, we had shifted to an incomplete house, where windows were without glass, temporary doors hung by loose hinges creaking loudly every time they turned, the first-floor walls still damp from recent plastering. Dad had prioritized safety of family before convenience. For the first year, family had to coexist with the noise and dust of carpentry, electrical work, plumbing, painting et all. It took more than a year for the house to settle down towards some semblance of a worth living structure.
I had moved outside India for studies just months before family migrated to the new place. A year later when I came back on holidays to our new home, the road from the airport to the city and then moving further north to the peripheries, seemed terrifyingly forbidding, endlessly turning over concertina corners and crater filled desolate paths that broke not only your morale but also the back.
It was a subdued autumn of September ’93, when silences were forced in homes lest the flames raging outside find their way in. Even the autumn breeze meandered slowly afraid of being conspicuous and then be blamed for carrying any of the sparks those had turned the valley into cinder. Silence and detachment to the outside havoc was desired for survival, but hardly achieved. The willow trees lined outside our main gate, extending in rows bordering the road, tall with drooping arms like the helplessness of enfeebled hands that had nothing of any support to offer, feared to sway in the breeze, afraid of making any noise lest they be noticed and marked. Yet despite their resistance to create a sound, they could be heard reluctantly venting melancholic notes of despair and loneliness.
The unwritten rule of those years was to bolt the main gate early every day and retreat to the assumed safety of our home, trying to escape from being trampled by any melee outside. That evening also Dad had bolted the main gate early and the family was sitting huddled together in the sitting room, adjacent to the kitchen, watching TV where a stern-faced news anchor was broadcasting the bulletin, a repertoire of the same events with just place and names changed and the same routine condemnations printed on older political letterheads to be read in the similar ceremonious manner every day. In the middle of the TV broadcast, there were loud shouts and commotion from Uncles home, who lived behind our house, with one orchard between the two houses. Then suddenly there was a call on our landline, Dad picked up, someone on the other side was crying “Boitoeth’a, Bhaijan ha nuookh” (Bhaijan (younger uncle) is being taken away). My father used to be addressed as Boitoeth (loving elder brother) while uncle used to be called as Bhaijan (dear brother). Dad dashed bare footed, out of the rear door that led from the kitchen towards the rear side of our home, directing the family to lock up and stay inside, rushing out of the small door that would lead to Uncles house beyond the small orchard.
At Uncles house he saw many men in civilian clothing, armed with automatic rifles, standing between the pathway and the kitchen door, while one among them was pointing his rifle at my terrified Uncle. His wife was kneeling before this menacing man, pleading that uncle be spared. A tall bulky man with a short beard and an automatic rifle hung by the shoulder noticed my father, looked at my him and mentioning his name. My father acknowledged being identified, standing composed in front of the armed monstrous man, requested that the rifle pointed at my uncle be turned away.
“Come with us” shouted the medium height person with an unshaven face and uncombed hair, with his rifle pointed towards Uncle, turning his face towards Dad.
“Where to and what is the matter?” asked my father, “We can sit and resolve whatever the issues are”.
“You both have to come with us” retorted the man with the unshaven face and uncombed hair, trying to drag Uncle with him.
Dad sped forward and tried to stop him from dragging Uncle, the unshaven and uncombed man pushing Dad hard on the ground.
While Dad had rushed to Uncles place, back home in distress Mom had called up our neighbors, Bashir Sahab and Majeed Sahab, informing them about the happenings. No soon had Dad reached Uncles home, the two neighbors had also rushed there.
When Majeed Sahab saw Dad being pushed to the ground, with unshaven armed man now trying to grab the pheran collar of Dad, he lunged forward and tried to push the armed man away. Majeed Sahab was himself a man of medium height and well built, which despite his being past 60’s had considerable strength, which resulted in the abhorrent gunman with an unshaven face and uncombed hair losing his balance, falling towards his tall and bulky colleague in the rear and hitting the stoned pathway. The bulky man, despite attempting to hold the unbalanced unshaven man could not get down in time to stop his fall.
Suddenly two armed men among the group leaped on Majeed Sahab, pinning him to ground and raising their rifle butts in order to hit him, when the unshaven armed man, who seemed to be their group leader, shouted them to stop. Meanwhile the unshaven group leader unlocked his rifle pointing it towards Dad and Uncle, and directed the tall bulky man to take Uncle and Dad along as the group prepared to leave. While Uncle and Dad were led through orchards and pathways, in the dark, Majeed Sahab and Rather Sahab were directed to stay back lest the group leader shoot any of his hostages.
That night nobody slept at these homes.
Early morning next day, message came about the demands, rupees two lacs to free them. Majeed Sahab and Basheer Sahab had traced Dad and Uncle being held at a place close to Zakura, where these militants had been frequenting. Came to fore that Uncle, who had recently purchased some land near his house, had come under the radar of these militants, who now were demanding their ‘cut’ from this purchase. This was their own taxation system in place.
The militant group leader was adamant and refused to come down on his demands setting a timeline of evening failing which he would move the hostages to an unknown location. By evening the amount had been settled to one and a half lac rupees. The money had been arranged by Dad’s cousin and he along with another relative proceeded to bring Uncle and Dad back from the militants. Uncle was barely able to walk when released, beaten and dragged while having been led from his home the previous night, while Dad sleepless and distraught from the trauma, had cuts and blisters in his feet having walked barefooted the previous night.
A few days later Majeed Sahab was picked up from his shop by the same group in a very swift move, without giving his family time to resist. There were no demands and he was released later that night in a half dead condition. His body had bruises, face was swollen, hands had marks of electric shocks, legs could hardly carry his own weight and his pheran was torn like a rag. The group leader of the armed gang had not forgotten the humiliation of having been pushed by Majeed Sahab, to the ground. He cunningly had waited for the ransom money to be delivered before enacting his next terror act. For months Majeed sahab could not walk properly, nor venture out as he did earlier.
Dad, despite his own excruciating pain, could not look Majeed Sahab in the eye, feeling guilty for his intolerable condition.
The next year, news came that the unshaven, uncombed armed militant with an obnoxious stench had been gunned down somewhere near Ganderbal.
After a few years, we again migrated further north of the city, in search of a piece of peace.
9th February, 2012
