I have to be prepared for everything

After the Jammu vehicles rattle out,Lal Chowk,Srinagars nerve centre and the biggest commercial area in the Valley,is momentarily quiet. But Hamidullah and his colleagues are used to such deception. In Lal Chowk,the site of the January 6 attack,when a policeman and a civilian were killed in the first terrorist strike in the Valley in 2010,theres never a quiet moment,says 31-year-old Hamidullah he gives only his first name,a constable with the Jamp;K police.

Every day,Hamidullah walks down to Lal Chowk from his police station at Maisuma,a nearby locality prone to volatile protests. The unrest usually spills over to Lal Chowk and so,Hamidullah is dressed in full combat wear and armed with an assault rifle.

We have to keep our eyes and ears open all the time, says Hamidullah,sipping his morning tea at a roadside stall.

Three constables,a head constable and an Assistant Sub Inspector from the Maisuma police station are always deployed at Lal Chowk,apart from dozens of CRPF men. Besides the men guarding the chowk,there are several close circuit cameras that keep an eye on passersby.

10 a.m.

The four clocks on Lal Chowks historical clock tower work at their own pace. No one remembers ever looking at the clocks for time but the tower has stood there for years,an unwavering presence as Lal Chowk witnessed terrorist attacks and protests. The chowk has had its political moments too. It was here,in 1947,that Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru embraced Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Over forty years later,on Republic Day,BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi unfurled the tricolour from the clock tower.

The half burnt Palladium theatre,which houses a paramilitary camp,at Lal Chowk carries the scar of its violent past. In 1993,the area caught fire in a gunbattle and most of the business establishments were destroyed.

As the wintry sun spreads a warm glow,the shutters go up rapidly and Lal Chowk suddenly comes alive with hundreds of people. Its hard to believe that this was where terrorists struck last week. Moments before the terrorists went berserk,they were among the faces in the crowd. But today is another day and Lal Chowk lives on.

Our task gets tougher with every passing minute. We have to keep an eye on everyone,be prepared for a grenade attack or to hear a shot from point-blank range, says Hamidullah. We not only watch out for militant attacks but make sure that no one takes law and order in his own hands.

The citys most volatile area,Maisuma,is a few yards away and Hamidullah and his colleagues know it doesnt take a moment for the situation to change in Lal Chowk.

At times,the policemen get inputs about a possible militant attack. We have to be extra careful then. We cannot take it easy. We start frisking and laying barricades, he says.

1 p.m.

Hamidullah takes a break and goes to his police station for lunch. One of his colleagues stands in for him.

Hamidullah,a resident of south Kashmirs Pulwama district,joined the state police in 1998 and he been posted at Maisuma police station for the last four years. In these four years,he says,he has witnessed four fidayeen encounters and narrowly escaped one such attack.

On October 4,2006,when there was a fidayeen attack at New Standard hotel in Lal Chowk,I was trapped along with a Station House Officer in a nearby hotel. We were rescued later, he says. Many policemen lost their lives in that encounter.

Hamidullahs family is worried for him but they know these are risks they have to live with. My family knows I am posted in the most volatile locality of Kashmir and they have reconciled to the fact. But they get tense whenever they hear of violence in and around Lal Chowk, says Hamidullah.

Hamidullah lives in the residential quarters of the Maisuma police station. His wife and four-year-old daughter Salakeen live in his village Lajura in Pulwama.

2 p.m.

Hamidullah is back at Lal Chowk. The centre is now bustling with business activity but nothing has changed for him. I cant afford to relax even for a fraction of a second. All of us have to be alert, he says. At times,we even regulate the traffic in the city centre.

7 p.m.

The shutters are down noisily. In the glow of the street lights,Lal Chowk dreamily winds up. So does Hamidullah. He has worked for 12 hours now and will report at the police station before retiring to his quarters. But here,you never know when you are asked to get back to work, he says.