Running from the mob towards the deadly motorway: ‘The maximum hard journey of our lives’

When shadowy figures regarded in a rented lodging of Kashmiri students in Jammu’s RS Pora, an “unwell purpose” surfaced at once. By dawn, eight Kashmiri college students had kick-started their motorcycles to return domestic amid curfew and mob.

Even as their college administration confident them of safety, they didn’t need to take any chances—given how the wintry weather capital had fared for snowbirds of the valley, maximum of whom know Jammu as their winter domestic.

The boys first approached a neighborhood petrol pump to fill their tanks. “Sorry, Army has barred us from supplying petrol to each person,” they were instructed.

Then, one of them dialed a number of their Muslim pal in Jammu. He rapidly introduced petrol in a plastic can. They distributed it amongst their 4 motorcycles before embarking on the toughest journey in their lives.

“We were paranoid of creating it to domestic,” Tajamul Ahmad, one of the eight students hailing from Awantipora, now remembers the nerve-jangled time. “We knew we had been up towards a multi-pronged chance — the mob, the landslides, the slippery avenue, the bloodless, or something else that the deadly dual carriageway had to offer.”

The 4 bikes ferrying eight college students maintained a fast pace on the street. It changed into one of those instances while being extra careful was the need of the hour and a touching desire for survival, too. The boys, in particular, avoided the first street, wherein irked protesters—armed with sticks and hockey—have been a status shield. To avoid confrontation and viable lynching, the boy bikers chose by way of lanes and maintained unassuming stances in the course of.

The journey, however, by no means ceased to be niggling. The mob had left a path of anger on many elements of the nerve-racking thoroughfare. “There have been burning tires on roads,” Tajamul recollects. “At many places, the routes were blocked. We needed to frequently follow the alternate routes to transport head.”

But at Kujwani, there appeared no getaway direction for the lads, who were walking domestic for his or her lives.

As Tajamaul remembers it, the frenzied mob had accumulated private a roadside park, hawking the toll road with their vitriolic faces. A footfall from Kashmir turned into seemingly high scrutiny.

“Some folks got so petrified that they determined to head lower back,” Tajamul keeps. “It felt like they may kill us.”

Eventually, the four of them returned to Jammu. The rest stood there, watching the mob and the uncertain journey spanning over 250 kilometers ahead of them.

Few days before their run to domestic, a few automobiles bearing wide variety-plates of Kashmir went up in flames in Jammu. The mood without delay turned frenzied. And on this insanity, Kashmiris became gentle-objectives. Tajamul’s one-and-a-half of-year ‘secure’ perceived photograph of the wintry weather capital modified forever as the perimeter rose.

ALSO, READ Sikh Samaritans of Jammu: ‘We won’t let every person harass our Kashmiri brethren’ Then, as tempers escalated towards Kashmiris within the backdrop of Pulwama vehicle bombing—leaving 49 CRPF guys dead, this BSc. Nursing scholars understood the grave rage and determined to plan a determined homecoming.

“Some people would tell us it would be alright,” Tajamul recollects the demanding second in Jammu. “But we may want to see it coming.” During those attempting times, Kashmiris reading and running outside the valley had confronted frenzied mobs. Many students were sending demanding dispatches lower back home. Videos showing the ruthless beating of harmless Kashmiris via mobsters added to the misery. One analyst referred to it as the ‘sadistic moment’ for Indian extremely-nationalists, who became Kashmiris into punching luggage.

“A non-Kashmiri buddy could always grasp out with us earlier than the attack,” Tajamul shares the treachery of times. “For one and a half of 12 months, we’d be together. After the assault, we spoke to him, and he did not reply. We were so scared that we couldn’t even make clear our stand.”

It wasn’t best his friend that changed. Tajamul and his 14 Kashmiri college friends experienced the “changed” behavior of their neighbors, shopkeepers, or other pals.

“They did no longer say something,” the Awantipora boy remembers. “They know us. But they had stopped speaking to us. They might stare at us, and it became turning into terrifying given the manner assaults had been taking location again and again.”

Amid those attacks, Kashmiri students had commenced staying collectively of their rented lodging near their college in R.S Pora. Kashmiri ladies have been staying inside the hostel. They had been so terrified that they could live up all night time, keeping a test, if every person became going to throw stones or burn the vicinity down.

It turned into at some point of this era that the two masked guys had shown up, for this reason drawing the eight Kashmiri college students on their bikes out of Jammu. Tajamul becomes many of the 4 college students determined to face the mob and complete the journey back home.

To ward off the possible perilous situation at Kujwani, he contacted his cop cousin, who was fortuitously published around. The cop helped them reach Harmuli in which they had, in the end, felt safe. Even as the harsh climate and lethal dual carriageway stretch changed into nonetheless in front of them, they’d conquer the mobsters.

“We presented prayers and thanked God for supporting us,” Tajamul says. Next, they stopped at Banihal in which they stayed at a friend’s place for the night. “In the morning, we left at eight. It turned into snowing and getting greater hard to experience. There had been no motors in the tunnel. It becomes too foggy,” he recollects, announcing they reached domestic at round 12 inside the day with their garments covered with dust. “It became the maximum difficult adventure of our lives.”