68 vehicles set on fire in 54 incidents; 24 in Srinagar alone
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR: While as many as 68 vehicles have been torched by miscreants in 54 incidents in the last 110 days of the street turbulence in Kashmir, around 250 ambulances of the State Health Department and other major hospitals have been damaged during the same period across Kashmir valley.
Director Health Services Kashmir Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman told STATE TIMES that as many as 190 ambulances of his department have been extensively damaged since July 8. He did not have figures of the official vehicles of District Hospitals, Public Health Centres besides the private vehicles Chief Medical Officers, Medical Superintendents, doctors and other medical staff damaged in the mayhem. Conservative estimates put the number of such damaged vehicles as around 1,000. Incharge Transport Department at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Soura, Deen Mohammad said that 16 vehicles of the State’s only tertiary care hospital were damaged. These include 8 ambulances and equal number of buses. Such ambulances belonging to other hospitals including SKIMS Medical College and Hospital Bemina, SMHS Hospital and its associated hospitals – Bone & Joint Hospital, Lal Ded Hospital, Chest Disease Hospital – are believed to be not less than 50.
Most of the doctors and other medical and paramedical staff, who were beaten up or whose vehicles were torched or damaged in stone pelting, have not filed FIRs for fear of reprisals in an atmosphere of anarchy. They are believed to be in thousands.
According to the official tabulation accessed by STATE TIMES, maximum number of the incidents of vehicle burning have taken place in the capital Srinagar district. SSP Srinagar Amit Kumar claimed that Police swung into action in each case. He said that when two Tata Sumo commercial vehicles were torched at Parimpora on October 17, entire cluster of the residents went into hiding though members of only two families were wanted. The prime accused, Merajuddin Ganai alias Raju, was finally arrested by the Police on Tuesday. On Monday, DIG Central Kashmir, Ghulam Hassan Bhat, and SSP Amit Kumar said at a news conference that 15 miscreants involved in torching 13 vehicles had been arrested even as 7 of the accused were absconding. Of them, Ganai was arrested the very next day.
However, the official statistics available with this newspaper put the number of the incidents of vehicle burning in Srinagar district as 24.
Five each incidents of vehicle burning have been reported in Budgam, Anantnag and Baramulla districts, four each in Shopian and Pulwama, three in Kupwara, two in Kulgam and one each in Ganderbal and Bandipore.
The vehicle burned down, mostly by the shutdown vigilantes, include 30 motorcycles and scooters, 18 cars, 9 auto-rickshaws and Tata Sumo passenger carriages, 7 trucks, tippers, JCB earth excavators and big load-carriers besides 2 ambulances and 2 mobile bunkers of security forces. In all 7 of the destroyed vehicles belonged to Police Department, Police personnel and security forces. One escort vehicle attached to Health Minister Bali Bhagat was torched in Rajbagh area on August 10.
Month-wise, 17 incidents of the vehicle burning happened in July. In the first incident, people protesting Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani’s death in an encounter set on fire a mobile bunker of CRPF at Hassanpora in Anantnag district on July 8.While as 11 incidents occurred in August and 9 in September, as many as 17 incidents took place in 25 days of October. Most of these vehicle were torched by the shutdown vigilantes in their attempts to spread fear and ensure that there was no violation of the separatists’ call.
