Srinagar, July 16: A white-colour ceiling fan whirls leisurely in a 10x8 feet room, renovated recently. This is where the dreams of this family were shattered when 24-year old Fancy Jan fell to a police bullet.
 A few days before the tragedy, the family hired a mason to renovate the room by erecting the sole window and Fancy had toiled hard, serving cement and saving charges of labourer to her family. 
 “This room is now significant for us. Every memory is filled in it, the day of joys as well as her death,” says Khadija, mother of Fancy. Fancy was the third among her four children, she said amid fits of sobs adding she was the backbone of the family economically.
 “She used to eke out a meagre earning for the family".On the fateful day of July 6, she visited her workplace in the neighbourhood as usual. But that day she returned home early at around 11.45 am for lunch. On main road barely 10 meters from the house, clashes broke between police and protestors during which the personnel resorted to heavy teargas shelling and firing. We came into this room; I, fancy and my other daughter were sitting here. Suddenly teargas smoke filled the room as this frame has no windowpanes. Tears rolled down our eyes,” Khadija recalled while being consoled by an old woman of the locality.
 She said, to avoid teargas smoke, Fancy tried to adjust this worn-out net still clung between two ends of the window. “Suddenly she screamed, Mummy Mei Aaw Fire (Mummy I have been Hit By a Bullet). These were the last words uttered by Fancy to her mother.”
 “On seeing this I slapped her face feeling she was scared by the sounds of gunfire. When I lifted her scarf there was a deep hole on her body through which blood was oozing. I shouted and everyone rushed into the room. People took her to hospital,” Khadija said. 
 A frail figure limping with an injured feet donning Kamiz Shalwar with skullcap on his head walked into the room. This is the father of Fancy, who was not spared while shifting her daughter to the hospital. “When we came out on the road carrying the wounded Fancy, police fired bullets and teargas canisters on us. We were not protesting, but ferrying Fancy to hospital still they (Police) shelled continuously. Only when I tore my clothes apart in the middle of the road challenging police to fire upon me, they stopped. And in this melee, I got an injury on my feet,” said Abdul Raheem, a labourer in a cargo company.  
 Raheem was not the only one to go through this physical as well as mental trauma, but his brother-in-law was wounded when hit by a tear gas shell while the family was carrying the Fancy’s body home from Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital. “When we were carrying her body after returning from SMHS, police shelled on the protestors at Lal Chowk without any provocation,” reminisced Raheem while showing off his wound.
 Fancy’s brother Mudassir Ahmad, a hired load carriage driver picks up a point from his maternal uncle. “It was not only my maternal uncle who was hit by the teargas shell. There were several others we don’t even know them,” Mudassir says, “My sister was hit by police bullet, which the autopsy report mentions. I want killers to be punished, but I know justice is elusive here keeping past cases in view. I am thankful to the chief minister, Omar Abdullah who mentioned in a news program on a Delhi based channel that my sister was innocent. Now I want him to punish the killers even FIR 80/2010 is registered against the IRP cops at Police Station Shergarhi,” he said adding, “neither we are with mainstream nor separatists because sacrifices are only rendered by poor people like us.”
 Her mother interfered furiously asking, “My fancy was neither a stone-thrower nor part of any protest. She was trying to adjust curtain on window, what was her fault?”
 Fancy was later on laid to rest in nearby ‘Martyrs’ graveyard at Dandarkah. 

Lastupdate on : Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 IST