‘He told me to wait and disappeared’: Elderly Kashmiri woman abandoned by son at Jammu railway station

October 19, 2025 by News Desk

Suhail Dar

Fatima Begum, an elderly woman from Monglad area of Tangmarg in north Kashmir, spent over 24 hours sitting helplessly at Jammu railway station, waiting for her son who had promised to take her along to Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, but never returned.

The 65-year-old woman said her son, who sells walnuts, almonds and apples in Saharanpur during the winter months, had taken her to the railway station on Friday evening along with his wife and child. “He told me we would all travel together. He asked me to wait at the platform while he arranged the tickets. Then… they just disappeared,” she said, her voice trembling.

Passengers at the station said they saw the elderly woman wandering around platforms late into the night, clutching a small bag and repeatedly asking people if they had seen her son.

“At around 1 a.m., I saw her walking slowly near the benches, asking everyone about her son,” said an eyewitness. “Later, we came to know that her son and daughter-in-law had boarded the train and left her behind. She broke down and kept crying.”

Station staff said Fatima Begum had refused to leave the premises, hoping her son would return. “She kept saying he must have missed the train and would come back to take her,” said one railway official.

According to locals from Tangmarg, Fatima had long been facing harassment at the hands of her son and daughter-in-law. “She often complained that they ill-treated her and wanted to get rid of her,” said a relative over the phone.

After word spread, the elderly woman managed to contact her son-in-law, who is now on his way to Jammu to bring her home.

Incidents like Fatima’s are sadly not isolated. In recent years, Kashmir has witnessed several similar cases where ageing parents were abandoned or forced out by their own children.

Earlier this year, The Kashmiriyat reported how an elderly father from Ganderbal was left by all three of his sons and eventually forced to live in an old-age home. Another story from Kupwara recounted the ordeal of a couple whose son pushed them out of their house despite their years of struggle to raise him.

Social workers say such incidents reflect a deepening moral and emotional crisis in Kashmiri society, one that quietly unfolds behind closed doors. “We’re seeing more elders ending up in distress, not because of poverty, but because love and responsibility have eroded within families,” said one volunteer at an old-age home in Srinagar.

“I was a single mother after my husband passed away years ago,” Fatima said, her eyes glistening with tears. “In my poverty, I did everything I could to raise my children, went hungry so they could eat, worked so they could study. And today, they have no place for me. They brought me all the way from Kashmir to Jammu, only to abandon me.”

As night fell for the second time, Fatima sat quietly on a wooden bench at the station, her eyes fixed on the tracks — waiting not for a train, but for an answer to why her own son could abandon her so far from home.