Srinagar, July 13: For Ghulam Hassan Mir and his family past 55 years have been an endless struggle to get justice.
 Mir, an active worker of ruling National Conference, had lost his two brothers and a sister after a bomb, they were fiddling with, went off on September 8, 1957 at their ramshackle Maisuma residence. The blast left his right leg disabled and his mother, Zarina too received multiple injuries.
 “My brother, Din Muhammad, 16, then saw a box wrapped in colored papers tied with the thread outside the Haji Masjid Maisuma,” Mir, 67 said. “He rushed home and called his younger brother Ghulam Moihidin who had clasped sister with his chest. As both of them began to untie the bomb, it went off with a bang. It killed my sister and two brothers on the spot. I was playing in the courtyard and a splinter pierced my right leg”.
 Apart from that, Mir said their house was reduced to rubble.
 “For two days our area witnessed curfew and protests,” he said. “All the top police brass and the then Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad visited our house and expressed solidarity with us.”
 In those days the Plebiscite Front Movement was at peak. Mir’s father Abdul Ahad Mir was block secretary of the Front and an active member of ruling National Conference.
 “I was 10 years old then. Bakshi told my father he would give land and a transport permit as compensation. However, he put a condition and said he would do it provided my father would stand witness in the court. He said my father should testify in the court that the bomb near the Masjid was planted on the instructions of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah who was facing jail in the conspiracy case then,” Mir said.
 His father, he said, refused to do so, and so started the saga of poverty and suffering for the family.
 “We could not rebuild the house. We were monitored by the CID sleuths day in and day out,” Mir said. “I would always accompany my mother Zarina and knock the doors of leaders to get help. Nobody helped us as my father was affiliated to Plebiscite Front”.
 Later, he met Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah in 1958- when he was released for a brief time- with the plea to help.
 “He met me and my mother and assured of help and compensation which never arrived,” Mir said. “The family lived under extreme poverty. One of my remaining brother and sister had to eat one time food. My father remained under complete pressure from the government. I continued with my struggle to get help”.
 In 1977, Mir again approached Sheikh Abdullah with an application to get the justice and rehabilitation. “I and my family wanted to get rid of the poverty. Sheikh Sahab again promised help and said he would visit our home. He knew us as we were part of their Front”.
 No help came from any quarter, but the stubborn Mir continued to knock the doors.
 “In 1984, I met Farooq Abdullah. Then G M Shah as well, but nobody helped us,” Mir said. “Later my father died, mother too. I am married and have three children. My family is supported by my brother who lives along with me in the same house at Maisuma which was blasted in 1957”.
 In the meantime, Mir worked as a conductor with a bus. Despite his disability, he overcame the problem with sheer perseverance.
 “In 2008, I worked as a NC worker. I attended rallies and wooed voters to cast their ballot in our favour. The underlying desire was that the leaders would compensate us for the losses. I intimated the party leaders about the compensation, nothing happened,” he said.
 Now in the 55th year, Mir realized the times have changed and he started looking for the FIR of that fateful day to prove his claim.
 “I was looking for FIR. I got it from Shergari police station some days ago. I was looking for it from past two decades,” he said while displaying the FIR copy. “Now people and leaders will believe me. It has been more than five decades since the blast occurred and changed our lives forever”.
 Mir didn’t lose hope. He thought his and his family’s loyalty will bear the fruit. “On May 10, 2011, I again thrust the copy pertaining to my compensation demand to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.  He had come to express sympathies with family of Iqbal Khanday that day. I stood their in advance to meet him”.
 “So far nothing has happened,” he said.
 “On the Martyr’s day on July 13, every leader pays a symbolic obeisance at Naqasband Sahib. But we too made sacrifices. They have gone unheard. I am old man now, but I fill fight for my rights,” he said. “Here the leaders fight to get power. People like me and my father always follow an ideology with a conviction to bring a big change. Ultimately we end up losing happiness, prosperity and our families. ”

Lastupdate on : Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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