Hadiya, a high school student was on way to take lunch for her brother Haziq, when she was turned back from the police station, ‘Do you not know Curfew has been imposed?’.
Haziq, an engineering student, had been arrested on August 1st, 2019 in a charge of a tweet he had posted. The same day, Haziq’s younger brother Hatim got a curfew pass from the district magistrate and headed to Srinagar jail on his bike, where again, he was turned back. The jail authorities said he wasn’t there and refused to give any information on him.
On 8th August, the family received a dossier that said that he had been booked under PSA.
The next morning Hadiya left the house and announced in the mohalla that she is not going to fight for her brother but the 13 boys from the surrounding mohallas, A hundred boys from the town. There was fear, people were traumatized and equally shocked by the intensity of the army deployment.
But Hadiya did not plan to go immediately. She left in the evening when the shifts of the cops changed. The deployment at night wasn’t as heavy.
She was only joined by a few girls and one old woman who lived next door. but as the group proceeded, they were joined by women in groups of threes and fours from every street they passed.
As they reached the town square, a hundred boys had already gathered, and soon they became a part of the march. Hadiya and a few other girls stood on the fountain base as their podium and spoke.
This was when the police intervened. They fired teargas which dispersed the crowd. As they tried to take the girls on the fountain base, the boys ran back and pelted stones and freed them. Many shot the videos.
The next morning police were on the prowl in the locality looking for boys they were able to capture in their camera. They had also picked the name Hadiya from the girls. They went around the adjoining mohallas looking for a girl called Hadiya and meanwhile Hadiya was sitting outside the central jail in Srinagar, demanding information on her brother. Almost a dozen people with the same demand had joined her.
After two hours, a policeman handed over a list of detainees from the Shopian district and the places of their lodging. Haziq’s name was 7th on the list. He had been taken to Agra jail in UP. That evening, Hadiya rode home with that list in her pocket like a trophy. Hadiya was a debator, she had brought several trophies home but no trophy had ever won had made her feel that proud.
She went straight to a businessman’s office, his landline was the only working phone in the town other than those in police stations or government offices. She had to wait for 40 minutes for her turn to call her father.
“papa book me a ticket to Jammu, i’m coming with a permission letter on Monday”. “I will call you back for the PNR”
On Saturday, Hadiya was at the police station, getting her father’s permission letter signed, with which she would go to her father.
“In 3 days, we will be face to face with Haziq”
Khytul Abyad is a visual artist who works and writes about the toll of conflict on life in Kashmir. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine art (Applied Art) from Kashmir University (2016) and pursued her postgraduate degree in Art and Design from Beaconhouse National University in Lahore (2019). She is Currently based in Kashmir and is working on her First Graphic Novel