And the Valley Remained Silent: A saga of Forsaken Aboriginals by Rahul Magazine

Author:Rahul Magazine [Magazine, Rahul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sabre & Quill
Published: 2022-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: Threat, Treachery and Brutality

Around the time we left Srinagar, horrific incidents were happening in the Valley. Three such incidents, which I got to know from the victims themselves, bring out the threat and hostility faced by Hindus living there.

I Didn’t See a Thing!

The shrill cry of a woman pleading for mercy rang across the neighbourhood, filling the hearts of those who heard it with a sense of uneasiness and foreboding. Alarmed yet eager to know what was happening, Santosh Kumar Kachroo* came out of his house and heard screams coming from a house nearby. His wife was in the garden talking to a young man, who was standing outside the five-foot high compound wall with only his head visible.

“What are you doing here? And why are you lingering around this place?” he heard her asking the young man.

“Nothing Behenji. I was just walking,” he replied. The man seemed evasive, his voice unconvincing.

Sensing trouble, Santosh asked his wife to get inside the house while keeping a watch on the man who was now walking away. From the neighbouring Hindu house, across the ten-foot side road, incessant shouts and wailing could be heard. Curious, Santosh went close to the compound wall and peeped over it. The scene he witnessed left him petrified and, unknown to him at that time, his life was affected forever.

Two young Muslim men, one perhaps a teenager and the other in his early twenties, were dragging out a Hindu auto-rickshaw driver from his home, with his mother in tow, crying and pleading for mercy. She was begging the terrorists to let go of her son. Weeping, she pleaded, “Balaya lagou, he is innocent. And if you think he has done something wrong, I will make sure he behaves in future.” Her tearful appeals were falling on deaf ears; the radicalised youth were in no mood to spare him. The woman, sobbing and imploring, followed the terrorists as they dragged her son towards the main gate of the house, which opened onto the side road. Somewhere during the commotion, the teenager lost his temper, pulled out an AK-47 from underneath his Pheran, and, pointing it at the lady, shouted, “You shut your mouth and get inside your house, else I am going to shoot you right here.”

Seeing the weapon trained at her, the woman fell silent. Santosh, witnessing this frightening scene, felt terrified, his legs trembling with fear. Before he could pull himself together, the terrorists were just a few feet away from him, having hauled the auto-rickshaw driver out onto the side road. The ill-tempered teenager had spotted him peeking from behind the compound wall. Coming closer, he yelled at Santosh, “You better not tell about this to anyone, or else...”

“I didn’t see a thing. I won’t tell anyone,” blurted out Santosh, benumbed by the overwhelming fear that gripped him.

“Leave this man alone; he won’t be any trouble,” the older terrorist, perhaps a local from the neighbourhood, cut in.

Holding the victim by the collar of his shirt and dragging him along, they quickly left the neighbourhood.

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