Dreams die young in J-K’s killing fields

JAMMU, DECEMBER 17: Itâ€™s the same old story of children getting crippled by mine blasts in a war that is not theirs -- ...

JAMMU, DECEMBER 17: Itâ€™s the same old story of children getting crippled by mine blasts in a war that is not theirs — now nearer home. Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) planted by militants in Jammu and Kashmir have left many children hobbling, ironically, with the help of contraptions made out of the Army’s ammunition and fruit boxes.

More than 35 children, including five girls, have during the past eight months become victims of such blasts in Poonch, Rajouri and Doda districts. Some have been lucky to get limbs grafted by Army doctors or through some social organisations but most continue to suffer. During the past one decade of violence, about 1,600 people in Jammu region, including 800 children, have lost their limbs.

“In the eighties people used to lose legs in mine blasts, now it is the IEDs,” says Jagbir Singh of Pritam Spiritual Mission, which is one of the organisations helping the victims. Splinters from IEDs, shells and firing from across the border are even lodged in the bodies of some of the children. To make them get on with their lives, many were given crude artificial limbs at home. And ironically, discarded ammunition boxes have proved to be quite handy.

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However, such contraptions cause their wounds to bleed, making many of them stay at home and even drop out of school. Some of them have been taken to Jaipur by social organisations like the Mission for artificial legs.

Twelve-year-old Mohammad Azam of Shahpur village in Poonch district stopped going to school as walking down five kilometres was not an easy task. Many times the homemade artificial limb carved out of wooden ammunition boxes would get lost. And then he had to crawl and reach home. “Walking down the hill to school meant once again injuring the healed wound of my amputated leg. And I can’t bear the pain anymore,” he says.

It was earlier this summer that Azam lost his left leg when he accidentally stepped on an IED planted to blow off a security force vehicle. He was going to deliver a lunch pack to his father working in the field when he stepped on the IED. When he screamed in pain, his 10-year-old brother, Mohammad Javed, ran to his help. Another IED planted nearby went off and Javed lost his right leg.

Father Mohammad Afzal, an ex-Serviceman, is yet to recover from the shock. His dream of getting his sons to join the Army will never be fulfilled.

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Babu Ram’s father was happy when his son received news that he had qualified for the Army recruitment test. A day before joining, he was fiddling with an explosive device while cutting grass when it went off, leaving him crippled.

For many parents their daughters have become a burden. The IED can strike anytime, while working in the fields or while fetching firewood. Sharifa Begum, a resident of Laam village in Rajouri district, is one such youngster. When she sees other children playing, she steps out “only to realise that I am handicapped,” she says, almost in tears.

For children like them, the danger lurking at every turn and in every corner makes the cease-fire quite meaningless. They have to live with the fear.