SRINAGAR: Around the time Mohammad Sikander Bhat lay dying at home in Jammu & Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar, Shafiq Ahmed was racing to get his pregnant wife to a hospital, negotiating about 85km of highways through a maze of heavily guarded checkpoints.
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Amid severe movement restrictions and a total communications blockade one man perished without his last wish fulfilled: that of seeing his three daughters.
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The other battled the odds, saved his wife, and became father to a son.
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The death and the birth and both families’ struggles reflect the human cost of the government’s harsh clampdown in the Kashmir Valley, home to nearly seven million people.
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For the first five days after the government’s move, parts of Srinagar had been turned into a fortress, blanketed with armed paramilitary and rolls of concertina wire blocking main streets. Anyone attempting to cross the checkpoints faced questions.
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It was around 2pm on August 7 that Bhat — suffering from cancer in his 70s — asked his son to go fetch his daughters, his son said, declining to be named because he feared authorities could disapprove of him talking to the press.
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On most days, it would not take more than 10 minutes to drive to their homes, he said. That day it took more than an hour.
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“By the time I came back, father had passed away,” he told Reuters.
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Under normal circumstances, he said they would have tried to call a doctor and make one last attempt to save Bhat, a moustached man with a love for gardening.
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“This time, we could do nothing,” his son said, because there were no telephones available to help bring a doctor quickly to Bhat’s side.
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Authorities say the lockdown and the detention of hundreds of local leaders aim to prevent widespread protests in the region.
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Some of these movement restrictions have now been eased, but aside from a few hundred public telephones, all communication remains blacked out for the 12th straight day.
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Highway hell
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Kokernag, a town in southern Kashmir, where Ahmed lives with his wife and daughter, was also locked down on August 7, he said.
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A lean man with a ready smile, Ahmed took his expectant wife to a nearby hospital for a check-up.
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There, doctors concerned about her blood pressure, referred her to the district hospital at Anantnag, some 25km away, saying they did not have staff because of the shutdown.
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“And if something happened, they said they wouldn’t be able to manage without communications,” Ahmed said.
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So, Ahmed, his wife, his daughter and sister-in-law piled into an ambulance. Ahmed said what is typically a 45-minute journey took more than two hours, passing through eight checkpoints.
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At the Anantnag district hospital, staff quickly ran tests.
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Again they determined they could not risk it, Ahmed said, asking him to take his wife to the main maternity hospital in Srinagar, about 60km away, for a safe delivery.
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They were stopped 10 times and it took them 2-1/2 hours instead of one to get to Srinagar, where his wife was able to deliver a healthy boy.
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But the rest of the family is in the dark.
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“Nobody has a clue where we are, in Kokernag, Anantnag or anywhere else,” Ahmed said, because all communication lines are down.
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The news of Bhat’s death has not travelled far either.
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On an overcast morning last weekend, a crowd of about 100 men and boys gathered at a Srinagar graveyard on the banks of the Jhelum river for his burial.
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A military helicopter flew overhead as they prayed for Bhat.
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Paramilitary police stood at an adjoining bridge.
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In normal times, the crowd would number in the thousands, including family and friends, Bhat’s son said, but they had been unable to contact most.
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“The problem is that even close family don’t know,” his son-in-law said. “Even his sister doesn’t know.” She lives only about 10km away from Bhat’s house.
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