The charred ruin of Mohammad Shafi’s house in Pulwama is usually what remains of homes where gun battles between the militants and the government forces take place.
According to Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a rights monitoring body, around 120 houses were devastated in 2018 during multiple encounters between the militants and the government forces across Kashmir valley.
Burnt windows, collapsed roof, walls pockmarked with bullets and detritus strewn across empty rooms is all that a fire fight left for Shafi’s six-member family on October 30 last year.
A little before midnight, as the family was asleep inside their home in the quaint Babagund hamlet two militants chased by government forces burst in their courtyard.
The forces immediately ring -fenced the house, but the militants from inside the courtyard fired a fusillade of bullets. The soldiers soon retaliated with full force sparking a fierce encounter.
Although the forces, according to family, killed one of the militants in their courtyard and later detained another, “our house was blown up using some explosives”.
“We could not salvage anything. Everything we had, went up in flames in the wink of an eye,” said Mohammad Shafi, a cab driver who had built the two-storey house for his family from years of his savings.
“After years of blood, sweat and tears, I was able to build the house,” Shafi said.
He has since moved his family into a rented flat in the vicinity of his village, living through a harsh winter with great difficulty.
“I have to use ice-cold water to do the dishes and wash clothes,” said Shafi’s middle-aged wife, adding their children suffer a lot.
“One of my daughters failed to write her class 12 exams. She lost all her books and other study materials in the gunfight.”
This is the story of numerous other families, particularly in southern Kashmir where frequent gun battles have left many homes razed to the ground.
Although government provides some solatium to affected families, many who lost their homes to gun battles have received no help.
Shafi’s is one of them.
“We have applied to revenue department for compensation but we are yet to receive any financial assistance,” Shafi said.
A revenue department official told Greater Kashmir that the compensation was provided only if the affected family got clearance from the police that the inmates had not given refuge to the militants when the gun fight broke out.