The Hindu : National : From Kashmir to Kerala

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004

National

National

From Kashmir to Kerala

By Biju Govind

FOR A NEW LIFE: Kashmiri children at Karanthur on Friday. — Photo: S. Ramesh Kurup

KARANTHUR, DEC. 24. Mansoor Ahmed Ghani, 10, is from Zainakote village in Srinagar district. Militants killed his father Nazir Ahmed Ghani nine years ago. After his mother got married again he was with his grandmother. He is among more than 250 Kashmiri children who have now been accommodated at the Markazu Ssaquafathi Ssunniya (Sunni Cultural Centre) at Karanthur in Kerala's Kozhikode district, and who have a sad tale to tell about their life in Jammu and Kashmir.

Ubaidulla Khan, 10, from Tangpura Battumallu in Srinagar, seems luckier. His father is a Government employee. He had lived with his mother and two sisters. ``We lived in fear in Kashmir... We cannot move freely in the State... I wish for peace in Kashmir,'' he says, with a tear in his eye.

Ask Bibal Ahmed Bhat or Sajith Ahmed Mir or Mohammed Amin about life in the Valley. They ask, almost in one voice: "What wrong have we done to suffer like this?''

On Kerala

But how do they feel about Kerala? "It is nice... It is different. We wish Kashmir will one day be like Kerala,'' said one of them.

The children, in the age group five to 12, arrived in Kozhikode from Kashmir on December 12 under an agreement reached between the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and the Sunni leader Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobaker Musliyar.

G.M. Allai, a social worker and vice-president of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) unit at Bassumalu, says that after the Mufti Government took power, insurgency has been contained to an extent. "Fifteen years of terrorism has left a trail a destruction,'' he says. Mr. Allai accompanied the children to Kozhikode.

Mr. Hakkim Musliyar, who is in charge of the children here, said the idea was eventually to start a centre in Kashmir for the children. "But that will take at least six months, after official procedures. So Mr. Sayeed asked us to adopt these children,'' he said.

Over a hundred of them are orphans from poor backgrounds. They know Urdu and Kashmiri. They belong to Pulwama, Baramulla, Kupwara, Distugar, Anantnag and Badgam districts. "Until they are mature enough to make a living they will be here,'' Mr. Hakkim said.

This is home for many other orphans too. More than 1,500 of them are at the twin orphan care centres — at Karanthur for boys and Maranchatty for girls. About 750 of them are from Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and other States, all Muslims.

The institution sponsors the children's higher education. Some past pupils studied medicine, engineering and technology. "We hope that these wingless birds from Kashmir will return to their land that we can finally call Paradise one day,'' Mr. Hakkim says.

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