Law Kumar Mishra
Terrorists on Sunday made grenades attack on the weekly market near tourist reception centre injuring about a dozen innocent customers.
I recollect, I also used to visit the Sunday market during my 1998-2001 naukari in the Times of India. I stayed in the TRC room for first 15 days on my arrival at Srinagar where temperature was minus eight degrees.
In the TRC, occupancy was only two, me and a Swedish engineer engaged in a hydro power project. For the first time in my life, I experienced the benefit of electric blanket, a 16 kg LPG cylinder as room heater. And, to beat the cold, faced syringes on the buttocks for a week.
The open play field facing TRC is used as weekly market place and also as bus stand. During my stay in a rented house on Court Road near Lal Chowk, on make shift dawn to dusk shops, woolen garments, blankets shoes were sold. Palladium cinema at Lal Chowk was burnt by the militants and it was turned into a BSF unit.
Grenades attacks were common during my stay. Once I had gone to Allahabad Bank branch near Telephone Exchange adjoining Ghanta Ghar, suddenly there were sounds and panic. The bank manager immediately downed the shutters telling customers there is a grenade attack.
At State Bank of India, there was a blast in an Ambassador car parked nearby. Militants had stored 200 kgs of explosives which were detonated by another group from the bund (embankment) on jhelum river. Eleven people, including a visiting journalist from Hindustan Times and four senior police officers died on the spot as car flew 100 feet high.
I visited the historic Sufi seer Dastgeer Saheb of 10th century. Unfortunately, militants on Saturday attacked the area with grenades at Khanyar, 4 km from Srinagar town. About 35 years ago, even teen aged militants were engaged to lob grenades from their bicycles.
Wonder, we are not returning to the past when security forces faced attacks by silent pistols. A retired judge of Supreme Court, Justice Pandian who headed the fifth pay revision commission had to make a hasty retreat on Residency Road near Lal Chowk where he had gone to purchase a shoe. His ITBP security men covered him when they heard grenades attack sounds.
(The author is a Patna-based senior journalist having worked for Times of India in Jammu and Kashmir)
