It was the evening of 8th July 2016. Me and my family came back to the hotel after a so called 2 day long travel from vaishnodevi. We had arrived early to the hotel and so the driver suggested that we could leave for Jammu to visit some places there. But being tired, we needed a day’s rest. So we relegated the advice( which we were going to remorse afterwards).
When we were taking dinner, we heard that Burhan Wani(the leader of terrorist group hizbul mujahideen) was killed in an encounter by the Indian army and situations in Kashmir were becoming worse. I should not say, but although Kashmir is an integral part of India, some people there have a feeling of antinationality( not in Jammu). The people there became enraged on hearing about the death of burhan. They came out in masses and started retaliating against the army. They pelted stones on the army and the army not getting permission could not give any counter response. When they were not satisfied, they started setting cars and buses in fire. They threw stones not only on the army but also on the tourists there. They by force closed all the petrol pumps of the near by places(we were lucky enough to have filled the petrol tank before this). Seeing this conditions and hearing about them to be more worse we decided to leave Kashmir as soon as possible. We packed our bags and started off to Jammu. But at the cross road ahead, the army stopped us and ordered us to go back as the situation was worse ahead at Anantnag(the birth place of burhan). I asked the army man about how much hours will it take for everything to settle down. He laughed and told me not to talk in hours but in days. He told me it might take atleast one week for conditions being normal. We were definitely not going to stay there for this much time( even the ATM’s were closed). But for the time being, listening to the man we went back to the hotel.
We passed two days at the hotel. We were allowed to go out in the nearby places from 12pm to 4 pm. The food supply being stopped we were having snacks as lunch and dinner which was in dearth.
Later on the 3rd day, I went at the army base camp( to the opposite of our hotel) with our driver. There I inquired about the conditions ahead. They said that the conditions are less exaggerated than before but still they could become baneful and the retaliating people could come up from anywhere. They adviced us to stay but added that we could travel back to Jammu “at our own risk”. They said that they were allowing few cars to go after 1 am .
We went back to hotel and informed everything to the people there ( by chance almost 85% of the people in the hotel were from Gujarat). After thinking deeply for sometime about what to do we decided to do the assiduous travel. So we packed our bags and waited for 1 am.
At 1 am we started our travel. There was army at the cross road ahead. They told us to be circumspect and adviced that if we suspect anything wrong, we should reverse the car and come back instead of pacing more ahead as this was the last army camp till Anantnag. Finally gathering courage we moved ahead.
All of our cars were moving at a pace not less than 90km/h. Stones and burnt wheels were lying on the road. Dodging the bigger stones we constantly moved ahead. Then came the moment we all were worried about and wished it to not occur. An innova car came back rushing from ahead and the driver shouting to us “stones ,stones” set off back to the army camp. Being in a state of fear, lot of cars went back to the hotel. Remaining cars waited there to confirm if that driver was speaking true. We also waited. We waited there for almost an hour but saw no people from ahead approaching us. Thinking that the innova driver had misunderstood something, we fearfully started our journey back. After sometime we finally came to the most dreadful place i.e Anantnag. All the street lights were broken, a lot of stones scattered on the road, burnt vehicles. And the army camp building of Anantnag was burned. There was complete silence. Only our cars were breaking the silence. Luckily we crossed the district without any problem. Now we were less tense. Still there were miles to cover but that fear had reduced. At last we crossed the tunnel connecting Jammu and kashmir.(the only road to connect the two places).
Kasmir is really a place worth visiting. It is called the heaven on Earth. It’s the most beautiful place I have ever seen. But some people there are creating terror by their antinationality feeling. In my point of view, entire kasmir should be given in the hands of army without any restrictions . They only would be able to handle such type of situations. I loved kashmir but will definitely not visit it again till the problems there are solved permanently.
Few photos of some of the beautiful places in kasmir:
Site Title 