Srinagar, Mar 1: Deeply engrossed in their childhood, Sadaf Zehra, Dawood and Zoorin Zehra don’t know that they have lost their father to pernicious Kashmir tragedy. Their father Showkat Ali Khan, wounded in a grenade explosion in Batamaloo Monday evening, lost his battle for life at SKIMS late night.
 With the family mourning the death, the siblings studying in class 4th, 3rd and 1st respectively, are fretfully waiting for their father’s return.
 “How can we make them understand that their father is no more? Why my nephew and nieces were orphaned? They would wait for his return every day. They don’t know that he would never return today,” says their uncle Shahid Ali Khan.
 As Dawood enters the room, his uncle and grandfather hug and kiss him.
 “Don’t worry my dear I will give my blood to up-bring you, but I cannot return your father,” Shahid says as tears roll down his eyes.
 Benumbed by the death of her husband, Zaheena is worried about the future of her children.
 “When they would ask for their father, what answer I will give them,” she says, as women around console her.
 Last evening Showkat left his Balgarden home to purchase medicines for himself after returning from his day’s official duty as he was suffering from cold.
 “He went to the medical shop where he usually purchased medicines, but fate had something else in store for him. The shop was shut and he went to other shop and brought three tablets from there. When he was returning, suddenly there was an explosion nearby,” Shahid said.
 Three persons including Showkat were injured in the blast near Fire Service Chowk Batamaloo.
 He says that an hour after the blast, they were shocked when their maternal uncle Bashir Ahmed rang them up, saying that Showkat had met with an accident.
 “We knew something worse has happened and we rushed to SMHS were he was lying in a pool of blood. There were bruises on his head and leg,” Shahid said.
 “He was shifted to SKIMS from SMHS where he was operated upon, but he couldn’t defeat the death and breathed his last after few hours,” he says.
 Talking to Greater Kashmir, medical superintendent of SKIMS, Dr Amin Tabish said that he primarily died due to fatal head injury.
 “He was brought in a very critical condition, we operated upon him but couldn’t save him due to severe head injury,” he said.
 After completing his civil engineering from Regional Engineering College Srinagar, Showkat was appointed in Roads and Buildings Department in ’90s and was presently working as Assistant Executive Engineer.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 1 Mar 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 1 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 2 Mar 2011 00:00:00 IST