Kashmir is passing through a worst phase of humanitarian crisis. The rulers instead of first reigning in the errant forces are trying to placate the angry people with the promises of jobs, and talks on restoration of autonomy. How is anything going to work when curfew continues and bullets rip through our young bodies. The anger is justifiably growing as the state forces are showering bullets on peaceful protesters irrespective of their age and gender. We have seen a 9 year beaten to death, a sixty five years old man short down, and a 21 year old girl done to death when a bullet hit her while she was home. We have seen them killing people at the day break and at dusk. We have seen them prevent people from entering the Hazratbal Masjid to offer prayers, showering bullets on those who defied and offered prayers. The height of repression can be gauged by the fact that they did not allow burial of a 16 years old Mudasir Ahmad Zargar, at Trehgam for two long days after he fell to their bullets. The pain and agony of people having grown manifold and there being no imminent end to it, we need to rise to the occasion and organize ourselves to mitigate the sufferings of our people.  We do have an institution like J&K Muslim Auqaf Trust or Muslim Waqaf Board that could have stepped in and launched an effort for reaching out to the needy but unfortunately they have failed people. But we do have people who have decided to come forward and lend a helping hand to the needy. The people associated with Masjid-e-Baitul Mukaram, Karan Nagar, residents of Soura in the neighbourhood of SKIMS, residents of Barzalla, Sonawar and others in the vicinity of city’s major hospitals have been doing a commendable job in reaching out to the victims of violence, indoor patients and their attendants, with food and medicine. We need to emulate them and try to organize help and aid for the needy in our own neighbourhood. A sizeable number of people in Kashmir are daily wage earners; their plight can be imagined in the obtaining situation. And there must be people who worked as professionals and earned a respectable living before the start of the current phase of uprising but with the closure of their establishments for over two months now they too must have run lean on resources. With the passage of time even those having a respectable earning otherwise will be requiring support. Given the situation we need to set up local bodies like Mohalla Committees, the way it was done in early nineties of last century. We need to create buffer stocks of food so that nobody goes hungry. We need to create institutions like Bait-ul-Mals that would extend monetary help and support to the people in dire straits irrespective of their caste, colour or creed. It is very important for us to organize humanitarian aid and reach out to the people faced with a very grave situation, threatening their very survival. The Mohalla committees could even organize ambulance services for the ailing people needing hospitalization as the normal ambulance services are already over stretched. Let these committees be run by honest and dedicated people who are ready to work selflessly. These Mohalla Committees could crate crisis management groups that would address to the needs of the people in such situations. The community leaders need to come forward and organize such institutions in small and big localities to enable the people to overcome the crises and withstand the trying situations.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 IST