Govind Sharma
JAMMU, Sept 18: Thousands of labourers mostly hailing from Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, UP and MP who had a nightmarish experience in flood ravaged Kashmir and managed to escape unhurt, have expressed that they won’t visit Kashmir valley for doing any job whatever may come.
However they were all praise for local families who gave them shelter in their houses and local youths who evacuated them in their boats.
Lying on the platform and waiting for their train, they were quite happy that they managed to escape unhurt from the devastated floods, which hit whole Kashmir region.
“Our death was imminent as the water level continued to rise and the rain did not stop. We had no hope of survival and death was hovering over our heads but then a local family gave us shelter in their house. We remained there on third floor for 8-10 days and when water receded were evacuated by a local Kashmiri to a safer place from where we hired a Sumo to reach Jammu”, said Mohd Shamsher, a resident of Bihar who along with 10 others was working as a mason in Sumal Sonawadi in district Bandipora, for last 2 years.
Telling his tale of woes Anees Ahmed (32), a resident of UP and a labourer working in a brick kiln at Pampore, said we were working in the brick kiln when water suddenly started rising, we all managed to escape from there in a tipper with our families. Telling similar story, Jaleel Ahmed (53), who was running a kiosk of Pan and Cigarettes in the same kiln, said my kiosk along with articles worth Rs 40, 000 was washed away in the flood water, but thank God I, along with my family, am safe and now returning to our home State. We will never go to Kashmir and try to start a new life in our home State, he added.
Mohd Jameel of Jharkhand, a labourer by profession said we have never seen such days when death was surrounding us and we were struggling for life. But thanks to our landlord, who for about 8-10 days provided free food not only to me but also my eight other room-mates, he said.
Javed hailing from Jharkhand, who worked as a barber at Bhimla in Srinagar, said that the scenes are still haunting him and he has no words to explain the tragedy, adding the terrific flow of water and demolition of walls and gates were shocking. “I along with my family took shelter on 2nd floor of a neighbour’s house. When water starts receding we were evacuated by a local youth in a boat. For about two days, we kept waiting for being airlifted outside the Srinagar Airport failing which we hired a private vehicle to reach Jammu”, he added.
Asked whether he will return back to his work in Kashmir when the situation becomes normal, he replied in negative, adding it is better to eat less than losing the life.
Parkash Lama hailing from West Bengal and working as a cook in Hotel Apex in Rajbagh area of Srinagar said we have never faced such a tragedy, where people were crying for help. “We also remained stranded for seven days in fourth floor of our hotel, waiting for some help but nobody came to our rescue and finally when water level went down, we travelled on foot from Rajbagh to Pantha Chowk then boarded a bus to reach Jammu”, he told. He said we didn’t have a penny with us and then a gazetted officer offered us Rs 5000 for bringing his luggage from a nearby hotel room, which was flooded with water. As we knew swimming, by accomplishing this task we arranged money for our return to our home State.
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