Struggling for survival Lastupdate:- Sun, 5 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT ...

On August 3, 2010, when Mehraj-ud-Din Lone, 22, was shot at from a close range by government forces outside his home in Barthana Qamerwari, his bedridden father lost his only son, the only support he had in old age. He left behind his ailing parents, a seven-month old baby, and a young, 20-year-old widow. Today the family is struggling to survive in the absence of their only bread earner.
Married at a young age of 20, Mehraj was working as a salesman in a shop in Batmaloo. He was working hard to support his family who depended on his income. From his modest income, he would run his home, take care of his old and ailing parents and his young wife and child. Now theres no earning hand left in this poor family.
On the morning of August 3, 2010 Mehraj had stepped out of his home to see what was happening on the street outside. Police and CRPF were deployed on the streets. Following the Eidgah Chalo call given by the Hurriyat leadership, a curfew had been imposed by the government authorities that day. Before going out, he asked his wife to stay inside as police and CRPF troops were stationed near their gate.? I told him not to go out as police and CRPF troops were patrolling the streets, recalls his wife, Daizy Jan. By the time she went inside, he had already gone out from the gate.
He hid himself behind bricks to see what was happening on the street. He was fired at by the police when he lifted his head to see what was happening, she says. After she heard that her husband had received a bullet, she lost her consciousness. She was taken to a neighbors house. She had left behind her baby at home, crying.
When Mehraj-ud-Din received a bullet injury that morning, his friends tried to take him to the hospital on their bike. There was no ambulance around. They were interrupted by the police. They didnt allow them to move to the hospital. His friends who were carrying him on the bike were beaten up by the police and CRPF troops, says Ess Ahmed Pirzada who visited the family soon after his death to document their story in his recently released book, Vaadi-e-Khoonaab (Valley of Bloodshed) that records the case histories and stories of over 100 unarmed people killed during the 2010 civil uprising. The delay proved fatal. Bleeding, Mehraj died on the way to the hospital. His friends in the neighborhood I talked to later said he was shot at from a close range by a police sub-inspector, says Pirzada.
Mehrajs son, Tauqeer Mehraj, was a seven-month old baby when he lost his father in 2010. He has now turned four. His mother says he is now aware that his father is dead. Whenever his mother talks about his father with her family, Tauqeer listens to their talk with attention.? In his school he tells other kids that he only has a mother and that his father is dead, says his mother. On his way to the school, whenever he sees a policeman or a CRPF trooper on the street, he gets angry and points his finger at them. They killed by papa, he tells other kids from his neighborhood.
Tauqeer studies in a neighborhood school where he is yet to pay his monthly fee of Rs 250 since November 2012. Except for the admission fee, the school did not waive off his monthly fee. His mother takes him to the school every morning and goes again in the afternoon to bring him back home. All the kids in his school travel in the school bus. But she cannot afford the school bus for her son.
Travelling in school bus will cost her an additional monthly fee which she cant afford. Theres no one to earn for her family.? Where will I get all this money? she asks.
Mehrajs father Muhammad Maqbool Lone has been bedridden for many years now. He can hardly walk to the bathroom. One side of his body is paralyzed. To take few steps he needs the support of a walking stick. When my son was alive, he says as his eyes brim with tears, he would take care of me and get all the medicine I needed. Only the medicine he requires everyday costs him Rs 2000 every month. After his sons death in 2010 he has been irregularly taking his medicine because he doesnt have sufficient money to buy all the prescribed medicine. I am supposed to take eight tablets every day but these days I take only four tablets as I cant afford to buy them all, he says.
Mehrajs father says after his sons death they were given Rs 50,000 by the government. All that money, however, was spent quickly as he had to regularly buy medicine for himself. They said that his child will get Rs 3 Lakh only after he turns 18, he says. They told us at DCs office that my son should himself come when he is 18-year-old and say that he needs that money and only then will he get that money, says Daizy.
Mehrajs mother, too, is unwell. She cannot respond to any questions about her son. She sits quietly in the room, staring at the passport-size picture of her son. She listens to all the conversation about her son but does not utter a word.
Without an earning male member left in the family, the family is facing many hardships. These days they dont live in their own house. After water started seeping into the rooms of their old house, their relatives arranged a temporary house for them to live in till the renovation? of their old house.
Mehrajs young wife has to take care of her kid and her in-laws who remain ill. Sometimes some sympathetic relatives visit them and give them some little money. Someone visits and give Rs 100, another gives Rs 200, says Lone. That is how they survive.
Mehraj-ud-Dins father is particularly angry at the Hurriyat leadership for leaving families like them on their own fate. After my sons death, he says, Hurriyat leaders visited our home, took photos, offered Fatiha, and then they never bothered to come again. No one helped us in any manner, he says. Akh nazar te dechekh nae temsend shaheed gasnae paete, his father laments about their indifference towards their plight. (They didnt even bother to visit us once after my son was martyred).
Why didnt Geelani and other Hurriyat leaders bother to visit us and see our condition? asks Lone. They are just good at giving calls for strikes.
The family has no one left to follow on what happened to their case. Do they expect the guilty to be punished anytime in future? Do they expect any justice from the present government? Then we would have got justice by now, Daizy brushes aside any possibility of getting justice.
When my only son was killed in 2010, Mehraj-ud-Dins father says in a bitter tone, at that time people from Hurriyat came and offered Fatiha. But after that, he says with disappointment writ large on his face, they didnt even bother to look back at us. They never came back to see how we are surviving.
(Feedback at maqbool.majjd@gmail.com)

Lastupdate on : Sat, 4 May 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 4 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 5 May 2013 00:00:00 IST

Source: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/May/5/struggling-for-survival-3.asp

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