Yaar (Pulwama): Firdousa and Khursheed were adored as a young, beautiful couple in Shadimarg village of southern Kashmir. Parents of two children, they were excitedly awaiting the birth of a third child – Firdousa was six months pregnant. They wished for a baby girl.
But dreams and wishes get shattered in a jiffy in Kashmir, where conflict continues to take its toll in different forms. Today, Khursheed’ dreams lay shattered in front of his eyes. Firdousa was killed in a ‘cross firing’ just outside her house on Friday evening. She was buried in a local graveyard in the midnight, just a few meters away from her home.
The loss of this young mother, who was nursing a dream in her womb, is another chapter in heart-wrenching tragedies that Kashmiris face day-in and day-out.
Her killing, like many in the past, will get reduced to mere statistics; police investigation, like hundreds of similar probes earlier, will not move beyond paperwork. It has, however, shocked the entire Valley. The Sheikh family is inconsolable.
“Come my beloved, come! Your children are dying to see you,” Firdousa’s mother-in-law, Fatima, cried aloud, surrounded by women mourners inside their twin-storied house in Yaar, a non-descript village deep among apple orchards in Pulwama district. Her shrieks filled the pungent air with moans as women – young and elderly – struggled to control their tears.
Two restless kids
Misbah and Aleema are too young to understand the tragedy that has befallen them. Aged five and three, they crave to see their mother, Firdousa. With each passing hour, their restlessness only grows.
Last evening, Aleema refused to sleep till late in the night, desperately wanting to be with her mother, said Bilal Ahmad, Aleema’s youngest uncle. “Then she fell asleep while crying.”
A single-storey house of Khursheed, whose wife Firdousa was killed in cross-firing on October 19 in Shadimarg village of Pulwama. The house is located adjacent to camp of 44 Bn of the armys Rashtriya Rifles. Credit: Mudasir Ahmad
Since morning, she has been looking for Firdousa again and barely took tea and lunch. She was told that her mother is sick and has been admitted to a hospital for treatment.
“I won’t eat anything in the evening if mommy doesn’t come,” Aleema jumped on her father’s lap, moving her index finger up and down his face. “I won’t sleep either.”
Her innocent words brought tears in Khursheed’s eyes and filled the room with long sighs. “What will I do now? Oh Allah! What will these budding flowers do without their mother?” he broke down.
Outside, Misbah was busy playing with some children from the neighborhood. He had visited his mother’s grave in the morning, but little does he understand that he and her sister have been orphaned at such a tender age and his mother is gone forever.
“See how much money I have been gifted today by my uncles and others,” he told the children who huddled around him, as he counted the notes. Then, after a pause, he threw up a question, as a middle-aged woman walking-by, kissed his forehead.
“Why is everybody kissing me? Have they gone mad?” he asked, this time loudly, sounding angry and irritated. No one, neither the children nor elders around, had any answer.
The next moment he ran inside the house and jumped on his father’s lap, next to his little sister. “May her (Firdousa) murderers rot in hell. Didn’t they once think what will happen to these two budding flowers?” screamed Asmat, Khursheed’s sister.
A young mother lost
The details about Firdousa’s death are sketchy. There was no mention about it in the daily bulletin issued by the J&K police on Friday evening. A police official on duty at local Rajpora police station said Firdousa died in cross-firing between militants and security forces after “rebels fired a grenade at the army’s 44 Rashtriya Rifles camp in Shadimarg village of Pulwama.
“It was followed by intense firing. The army responded to the fire and in exchange of fire the woman died,” said the police official on duty.
The police have registered an ‘open’ FIR – FIR that does not identify the killer/s – for murder in the killing. “We have taken up investigations. The police will record statements from family, neighbors and men from the local army camp and proceed accordingly,” the official said.
Narrating the incident to The Wire, Khursheed, a salesman at a garment shop in Pulwama town, said he was with his wife moments before the tragedy struck them. He said that at around 6:45 pm, they had evening tea. Then his wife went out to wash utensils in the garden. “Within minutes, I heard a loud bang which was followed by intense firing. I rushed out to see my wife. She was lying flat on the ground near the tap…I cried at the forces to stop the firing and let us take Firdousa inside, but they didn’t listen,” said Khursheed, who had no idea till then that his wife was already killed.
Amidst firing, the young man said, he and his sister, Asmat, gathered courage and brought Firdousa inside the house. “She had turned pale. I thought she had fallen unconscious…but the moment I saw a big hole in her throat with a metallic piece stuck in it, my world collapsed in front of my eyes,” he cried.
Twenty-five-year-old Firdousa, who was-killed in ‘cross-firing’ between militants and security forces in Shadimarg village of Pulwama on October 19. Credit: Facebook
Once the firing stopped, the neighbors rushed Firdousa to a nearby health center. She was later shifted to the Pulwama district hospital, where doctors declared her brought dead.
Khursheed’s is the only house in Shadimarg locality which is located adjacent to the camp. All other houses are located opposite to the camp across the road. The house is separated from the camp by a plot measuring around 10 meter in length.
The house stands abandoned today. Khursheed, along with his two children, has shifted to his parents’ house. “What is left for the family here now? The couple had built it with such a passion and had just started to settle in their life,” a local baker from the locality said. “I don’t think he (Khursheed) will now return to this house. He saw his wife dying here.”
Twenty-six-year old Khursheed and 25-year-old Firdousa were married for six years and had shifted to the house three years ago. “They were so young when they got married. I still remember their childish expressions as a newly-wed couple. This conflict didn’t spare them too,” a middle-aged woman told another woman, while coming out of the house.
A moment later, more cries followed, piercing the air. “What will we do of the dresses you had purchased so passionately for your (unborn) child? Why did they snatch you so young from us?” Firdousa’s mother cried, inconsolable.