Noor Muhammad remembers an injured man who was brought till the hospital road by his relative who was shot at and died while the injured man survived. Another old man, he says, was shot at while he was bringing dead bodies to the hospital on a hand cart. “When graves were dug, people would come forward with the dead bodies of their relatives,” recalls Noor Muhammad. “They wanted them to be buried first,” he says. “We fell short of graves that day.”
“It was like Qayamat that day,” he says and looks away to gather his thoughts. After an uncomfortable pause, he adds, “people were shouting and running for their lives. There were dead bodies, blood and bullets flying around.” Before they lost their younger son, the family had suffered another tragedy a year ago. Abdul Rashid’s elder brother Mushtaq Ahmad was killed in custodial killing, says Noor Muhammad.
Mushtaq Ahmad Pandit, a 33-year-old tailor from Bijbehara town, is another survivor of the massacre. As BSF men opened fire in the direction of the people, he received two bullets. One bullet hit his leg and another, his left arm. His head hit a rock on the street which damaged his right ear drum. He was run over by people who were running for their lives. He doesn’t remember who picked him from the street. He woke up in the hospital later that day.
His father, Ghulam Muhammad Pandit, who was also part of the procession that day, received a bullet in his leg. He was treated in bone and joint hospital in Srinagar for two years. The doctors had asked to cut his leg but his family didn’t want him to lose his leg. He suffered from infection for many years and couldn’t move out of his home. Two years ago, he passed away. He was 70.
Shabir cannot work for long hours in his shop because of the bullet injury in his arm. He cannot hear properly and needs to permanently wear a hearing aid. He cannot lift weights. He looks older than his age. In the past twenty years his right arm had to be operated on four times. He is yet to recover from his injuries. The pain has not gone away and the memories of the dead have stayed with him. They are refreshed every year on October 22, a very painful and long day for the survivors and victims of the massacre.
Shabir says he saw a young man dying in front of his eyes that day. Those memories haunt him to this day. Twenty years mean nothing for us, he says. The memories are as fresh as his unhealed wounds.
“Soe maesha ase zahn?” he says at the end. (Can we ever forget that?)
very soon they will pay for each drop of innocent blood….in shah Allah!