Srinagar, July 10: Carrying a dead baby boy in a cardboard box his sister Shameema had given birth five days ago but the child died last night Abdul Majid Dar has been pleading for an ambulance, at least a curfew pass, to take the body home to Dangerpora in Sopore.
Not one in the hospital can help they can’t risk sending an ambulance out of the city without permission. Dar can’t get to the Deputy Commissioner, the officer who issues the curfew pass. So, cradling the cardboard box with the body of the newborn, he waits on a bench in the courtyard of the Lal Ded Hospital in Srinagar, unable to decide what to do next.
The curfew, now in its third day, has begun to hit lives across Kashmir.
“I wanted to take the baby’s body home for burial. I didn’t get an ambulance.
I can’t go in a private vehicle because I don’t have a curfew pass,” said Dar. “Hospital authorities said they can’t spare an ambulance immediately. So I am waiting. What else can I do?”
For the delivery, Shameema had to be brought to Lal Ded Hospital, the only maternity hospital in the Valley. Dar said she still doesn’t know that her baby is dead. “It is her third baby.
With body of newborn, man waits in Srinagar hospital for a curfew pass to go home to die after birth. The father wanted to see the baby but couldn’t reach the hospital because of the curfew. He had to return midway twice. Now he will see the body.”
Enforcing the curfew, authorities didn’t allow people to offer Friday prayers in any major mosque. This has led to resentment because it is Shab-e-Me’raaj (The Night of Ascendance), one of the holiest nights for Muslims when they congregate to offer special prayers. Every year, lakhs of devotees gather at the Hazratbal shrine to offer prayers on this day.
People in Hazratbal came out to protest. When policemen tried to disperse them, youths started hurling stones. A few hundred from the immediate neighbourhoods did manage to hold Friday prayers at the shrine. The prayers at Jamia Masjid, the largest mosque in Kashmir, were not held for second consecutive Friday.
Under public pressure, the government has decided to allow the faithful within the city to go to Hazratbal shrine from 8 pm onward tonight. “We have decided to relax curfew to allow people to go to Hazratbal for Shab-e-Me’raaj,” IGP Farooq Ahmad told The Indian Express. The government is apprehensive because the Hurriyat has asked people to march to Hazratbal and organise protests.
In Baramulla, restrictions were in place and there were no Friday prayers in major mosques. Both Baitul Mukaram, the grand mosque of Baramulla, and Masjid-u-Rashaad, the headquarters of the Tableegi Jamaat, were closed. A large number of people, however, offered Friday prayers at Eidgah Kadeem. Soon after the prayers, people came out in a procession and began protesting. They were stopped by police at the Cement bridge that divides Baramulla and the old town.
“They (the policemen) started running towards us and suddenly opened fire. A bullet hit Suhail Ahmad Jarnail in his abdomen. He fell down,” said Jarnail’s brother-in-law, Mohammad Ashraf Sofi. Jarnail (34) is a shopkeeper. “We rushed him to hospital. Doctors said his condition is stable,” said Sofi.
-Agencies