Death beneath their feet

Wajid Ahmad Ahanger woke up early that Sunday morning. The 22-year-old resident of Arizal Village in central Kashmir’s Budgam district had hired a horse to ride up to Tosa Maidan for a picnic held there as part of a cultural festival.

He never made it to the picnic. Just as he reached the meadow, an unexploded shell burst after he touched it out of curiousity, fatally injuring him. Four other young men were also injured in the incident of August 12.

A student of Beerwah College, he was among scores of youngsters heading for the fourth annual Jashn-e-Tosa Maidan cultural fest. The five-day festival which ended on August 13 was held in a picturesque field littered with hundreds of unexploded shells.

The Indian Army, which once used the meadow for artillery practice, had handed it over to civilian authorities in 2014 after declaring it to be sanitised. However, about 70 people have been killed and hundreds injured in explosions in the sprawling meadow spread over 375 acres of land.

The Army took over Tosa Maidan in 1964 as a firing range. The lease expired on April 18, 2014, and the then Omar Abdullah-led NC-Congress government did not extend it in response to demands by locals to close down the firing range.

The locals call the meadow a death trap, especially for the cattle grazing community. In a written reply in the State Assembly in 2013, Abdullah said 63 people had lost their lives and 41 injured in unexploded ordnance (UXO) or the blast of ammunition remnants in the maidan since 1965.

At their home in Arizal, Wajid’s father, police constable Bashir Ahmad, is distraught and angry as people stream in to grieve with him over his son’s death. “There are still hundreds of unexploded shells in the meadow. Had they put some danger signs there, maybe my son would have been more careful and not touched the shells,” he says.

Wajid’s family wants a probe into the incident. “This is not an accident,” says his elder brother Rameez. “If the army cleared the area in 2014, how are these shells still there?”

Dr Shaikh Ghulam Rasool, chief patron of the Tosa Maidan Bachav Front, formed to protect the local people from the dangers of leftover shells, has questions about the blast, too. “There is doubt about how these shells suddenly landed in that area close to the main road. We have been celebrating the culture festival there for the past three years, but there were no such incidents in the past,” he says.

The families of the victims want the government to compensate them for the loss of life or limb. In Shunglipora village in Khag, Budgam, about 40km from Srinagar, many families have lost dear ones to leftover shells.

Some have been waiting for over 20 years to get full compensation. Gulshana Bano, a 50-year-old widow, recalls how her husband, Muhammad Latief, was killed by the splinters of an exploded shell in 1997 when he’d gone to the meadow to check on his cattle.

Gulshana had to single-handedly raise her four minor sons and two daughters, who were forced to drop out of school. “All I got from the government was ₹10,000,” she says. The government is supposed to give a compensation of ₹2.5 lakh in case of deaths from unexploded shells, ₹2 lakh in case of 100 per cent disability, and ₹1.2 lakh in case of partial disability.

Sudden blow: Gulshana Bano’s husband Muhammad Latief was killed by the splinters of an exploded shell in 1997

In nearby Darampur, Zareefa Bano has a similar story to relate. Her husband, Salam Tantray, 40, was killed along with a 25-year-old neighbour when they stepped on an unexploded shell in 2004. Zareefa was not compensated by the authorities, nor was the dead neighbour’s 60-year-old mother, Seada Begum.

“The district administration is authorised to seek compensation for the victims from the Army,” says Rasool, adding that even the damage caused to the landscape is supposed to be compensated by the Army. “We have written many times to the district administration and the J&K State Commission for Women about the need to provide compensation to these widows, but nothing has been done till now.”

Deputy commissioner (Budgam) Sehrish Asgar says that following the death of Wajid, the district administration wrote to the state home secretary about the need to demine the meadow. “We have taken it up with the higher authorities and they have also talked to the Army brigadier concerned. They have agreed to demine the area,” the DC says.

On August 19, the state government and the Army carried out a fresh sanitisation exercise using explosive detectors. “The drive was carried out keeping in mind the influx of tourists... who are vulnerable to the dangers associated with the unexploded shells,” read a statement issued by Batallion 53 Rashtriya Rifles. “All efforts have been made to ensure that the area is sanitized. However it is once again urged to the awaam that in case they find any such unexploded ammunition, they should immediately report to the nearest army camp so that instant action could be taken to destroy it.”

Meanwhile, Wajid’s death has opened up old wounds. “What happened to us shouldn’t happen to any other family,” says Seada. “We don’t want more families to suffer.”

Majid Maqbool is a journalist based in Srinagar

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