Across LoC, a home away from home

“This is my new world,” phiran-clad Sajad says at the Pampore police station. Pointing to Abdul Rashid Dar, a 45-year-old businessman, he says: “He is my daddy. I have a new family. I have new brothers.”

When the earthquake struck, the Class 3 student was playing cricket at a playground in his hometown, Muzaffarabad. “I rushed home and saw it turned into a pile of rubble. My parents were dead. They were buried beneath,” he says.

“I was alone. My uncle and two aunts live in Islamabad. I waited for them, hoping that they would come to take me along. But they didn’t come,” the boy adds.

A few days later, Sajad crossed the LoC unnoticed. “I was told by some of the villagers to come along. I crossed a broken bridge at Uri with them. The others went on to meet their relatives. I didn’t know anybody. Soon I was alone again,” he recalls.

Sajad walked up to Uri. His story moved the villagers who began to call him beta. Sajad then stayed at Uri for two months, spending his time at various relief camps. “They (the villagers) urged me to stay with them. They said we will treat you like our son,” he says.

But Sajad was shocked when a villager told him the Army would arrest him if they learned about him. On hearing this, he boarded a relief truck to Srinagar and eventually reached Pampore.

Here Dar spotted him and took him home. “I then informed the police to avoid unnecessary trouble,” says the businessman. “I want to adopt him as my son.”

Even though Sajad has spent just one night at the Dars’, he already feels at home with them. Last night, Dar’s 18-year-old son gave Sajad company at the police station as the child was reluctant to stay alone there.

Dar has filed an application in court seeking custody of Sajad. For the present, however, he is with the police. “He is in our safe custody,” Pampore Station House Officer Manzoor Ahmad Lone said. “Yesterday, we received reliable information that a boy from Muzaffarabad was wandering in suspicious circumstances. We sent a police team and took him in,” he added.

The police have registered an FIR and presented Sajad in court today. The court is to decide his fate, but, for his part, the boy is certain that he does not want to return to Muzaffarabad. “Where would I go there?” he asks. “There is no one there to give me a home.”