Amidst heavy snowfall, a woman at a village in south Kashmir’s Shopian district gave birth to a child on a stretcher when she was being taken to the hospital on Tuesday.
Akhtar Jan of Shalidar Zrakan village delivered the male baby when she was being ferried to Sub District Hospital (SDH), Keller, some 10 km away, on a makeshift stretcher. Locals said that the snow-covered road forced them to move her to the hospital on a stretcher. “As Akhtar began crying in labour pain, we decided to shift her to the hospital on foot,” Papa Poswal, her husband, said.
He said that she gave birth to the baby after they had covered a distance of 3 km. Poswal said that it took them nearly 4 hours to reach to the hospital. “We sought help from the district administration but to no avail,” he said.
Mohamad Rafiq, a local said they had been struggling to shovel the snow from the roads for last three days. “The village has completely been cut off from the district headquarter,” he added.
The locals appealed to the authorities to clear the roads in the village which have been covered by the thigh-deep snow.
A medical official told Greater Kashmir that both the woman and her new born were stable.