BJP abandons slain leader’s kin

They live alone under the constant threat to their lives in Rafiqa’s parents’ house in Parigam, a remote village in south Kashmir. Noorani’s widow Rafiqa says she was expecting the Government to at least provide her three minor children admission in a good school outside the state. “Being the family of a BJP leader has virtually made usoutcasts in the Valley. I was expecting some relief, but they did not treat my husband even at par with an Army jawan who lost his life in the Kargil war,” she laments. “Did he not die in the name of India?” All that the government provided Rafiqa and her kids was a single-room accommodation in a hotel in Srinagar, which they later left to stay in her parents’ single-storey house in Parigam.

The state has deployed five cops to provide security to the family, but this has added to their woes. “We have just two rooms and a kitchen. We live in one room while the other had to be given to the policemen,” Rafiqa points out. She adds that when she went to Delhi to meet “Atalji” along with her children for help, expecting a VIP treatment for being a “martyr’s widow”, she was denied even an audience with the PM. “Main chaar baar Atalji ke darwaze se wapas lauti (I was turned back four times from PM’s door empty-handed),” she says.

A desperate Rafiqa even approached one of her husband’s friends and a BJPoffice-bearer in Delhi, who took her to Union Home Minister L K Advani. “Only Advaniji was nice, but his personal staff refused to help. I had gone to Delhi with lot of hopes but returned disillusioned,” Rafiqa says.

“Nobody bothers,” she rues, “not even those who used to frequently visit our house in Srinagar when my husband was living. We even met party president Kushabhau Thakre, who was very close to my husband. But his promises too bore no fruit. He had promised to give us a call, which never came.”

Besides the threat posed by ultras, there’s the problem of running a household, which has fallen on Rafiqa’s shoulders. “Had I not been working myself,” she notes, “it would have been very difficult to keep the home fires burning.” Rafiqa is a constable in J-K Police and has been on leave ever since Noorani’s killing. “I have been pleading with the Government to transfer me from Srinagar to anywhere near my village but nothing has happened so far,” she says.

Slowly, Noorani’s family islosing hope. “I had a feeling that my children would have the entire party to take care of them,” Rafiqa says now. “But I was mistaken. I had lot of hopes from big party leaders, who were shedding tears on television. Now I am convinced that they never bothered to know what happened to Noorani’s family.”