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| Many risk their lives to save strangers, others loot their own in despair | | Tragedy brings out shades of (in) humanity | | Abodh Sharma
Jammu, Sept 14: Besides the yeoman service rendered by the Indian Army and the paramilitary forces to the victims of unprecedented floods in the Valley, the contribution made by the hundreds of young local volunteers which included students, professionals and commoners, who risked their lives to save others cannot be ignored, but there have also been reports of certain vultures on prowl at the time when humanity was under acute distress in Srinagar.
Those rescued from the Valley had contrasting stories of agony, courage, compassion and greed to narrate. A government official who managed to save his life staying on top of the roof of a private guest house told that he was alive only due to the family in the immediate neighbourhood of the place where he had taken refuge. "I was driven out of the hotel I was putting in at Gogji Bagh area as the water starting rising and left with little money, I managed to sneak onto the roof top of a private guest house, where a few other people had already taken refuge. The family in the neighbourhood kept us alive by sending few chapattis and water for 10 odd people who were struck on the roof of the guest house using a steel wire; but for them, we would have died of thirst and hunger", he said preferring not to be named. "I cannot forget what they did for us even when they were themselves struck and were desperately waiting to be rescued", he added.
However, tragedy also witnessed the nadir of greed and voracity to which humans can fall even when fraught with tragedy of this magnitude. "Some of the local boatmen, who could have been of great help to ferry the people to safety, tried to cash human tragedy. They demanded thousands for rescuing women, children, old and ailing when they had lost everything in gushing waters", narrated another government official rescued by the NDRF. "These rogues even tried to intimidate the rescue teams by attacking them and trying to damage their boats so that hapless people had no option but to pay them huge money for their rescue", he added. "While there are many who have cared little about their own lives to save women and children, there are others who are still on prowl looting the victims of whatever little they are left with", he added further.
Regrouping stone pelters?
There are reports that notorious stone pelters are being regrouped and encouraged by separatist elements that have been totally exposed by the tragedy and the manner in which they disappeared leaving Kashmiris alone in distress and despair.
The incidents have also brought Kashmir police under scanner for not registering any FIRs in incidents of attacks on NDRF teams and stone pelting on IAF choppers. It is pertinent to mention here that one of the NDRF men was brutally attacked and had to be airlifted to Chandigarh following multiple injuries. |
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