Kiya hai paesh lahoo watan walon, Chaman walon. Humein bhi yaad kar lena Chaman mein jab bahar aaye.

The evening is chilly. In the small hamlet of Khulchor, Shangas, women are washing clothes in a nearby stream. I sit on the steps of the small wooden shop, waiting. A crowd surrounds us, eager to know what this is all about. Wearing a Pheran, Ghulam Ahmad Wani, 75, shuffles the coal with a chalan.

As the Kangri gradually warms up our numb hands and feet, Ghulam Ahmad’s old eyes begin to reveal more. His son Ejaz Wani was 20 when he joined Hizbul Mujahideen. Extremely popular among both Pandit and Muslim families, he has been martyred now for more than 9 years; while the family is battling for even basic survival.

“He used to study in Utrasu College. Deeply devoted to Islam, he was shy; more of an introvert. He was learning the work in a medical shop that he had joined”, reminisces Ghulam.

Still in its infancy, the armed insurgency had started showing its presence in the entire valley and south Kashmir’s Islamabad district was no different.
Militants would roam the streets freely; buying daily use items from locals. It was during such meetings that they met Ejaz.

And so, one day, he just went away. Ejaz’s elder brother Mushtaq Ahmad Wani, 46, says the year was 1989. “We searched a lot but he was nowhere to be seen. A week later, we got to know he had crossed the border”, Mushtaq adds.

Ejaz was now Umar Shujaat- his code name for Hizb.

Nine years passed thus. He would come straight home- sometimes after six months, sometimes after eighteen days. “We would ask him about his whereabouts and well being. But he never told us that. I would tell him that he is a graduate, our father is old. We would point out to him the lack of income but no emotions or family ties could stop him”, he reminisces.

After Ejaz went away, the ruthlessness of the Indian state unfolded before the family and it became witness to the gory torture that marks life in Kashmir.

“He was on the hit list of troops, J&K Police and the agencies. The troops used to come home 10 times a day; have regular rounds. Once I was taken for a month for interrogation and given electric shocks”, states Mushtaq, who has been kept in Khanabal and Khundru camps several times. He has been on a constant run since then, hiding away from the troops to save his life.

Even Ejaz’s old father was taken for questioning, beaten and abused. “My heart used to beat so fast. I have lost my health since then. My wife Sara Begum would cry and has fallen ill”, explains Ghulam.

The torture was more mental than physical. Window panes were broken in the middle of the night, entire household looted during searches. “Even calendars, time pieces, milk and such routine things were stolen just to irritate us. Our garden and vegetables were destroyed. They would mix spices, oil and rice together; coal would be mixed with pulses rendering both useless”, he adds.

Owing to the pressures, Mushtaq never got a job. His children’s education suffered and they had to be kept at the headmaster’s place for days together. His young sister had to be sent away to an uncle’s place in Srinagar to keep her safe and she is still unmarried.

The financial health of the family deteriorated with time. “We would wear pherans with silver tilla work. You can see our condition now”, he says pointing to the worn-out pherans and the small wooden grocery shop.

Ejaz would see all this but he would just laugh. For him, life had a larger mission. ‘Yeh kya masla hai? Is Duniya mein kuch nahi rakha (It isn’t a big deal. There is nothing in this world)’, he would say.

Mushtaq says life was proceeding this way when suddenly, on the evening of December 22 in 1999, Ejaz came home and handed over his will to him. “It was an evening just like this. He handed me his will and distributed all his clothes among poor. I told him that he would need them for the winters but he said Allah will give more.”

He went away and was martyred the next morning on 23 December, 1999 in an encounter with 7 RR in Deethu when he was just 29 years old.

As the Kangri circulated among us, Ejaz’s will and his personal diary were shown. A black, leather-bound diary with the year 1995 engraved in golden ink and his will, written in red ink (perhaps signifying blood) were an insight into his thoughts.

Written on 4 December, 1999- exactly 20 days he achieved martyrdom, Ejaz had written that all non-Muslims should be protected. ‘Gair Muslim logon ke saath bhi acchhi tarah paesh aana kyunki humein Mohammad Rasool Allah ne yahi darz diya hai’, he wrote.

Not only this, he would also tell his family to treat the troops well. His fearlessness and conviction to the cause is reflected by the fact that he had requested people to celebrate his death. ‘Jis din main shahadat nosh karoonga, toh us din maano aapki eid hi eid honi chahiye. Aur khushiyon se fiza jhoomni chahiye. Meri shahadat par jaza-faza, rone aur kapde faadne se parhez karma’ (The day I achieve martyrdom, consider it as the day of Eid. There should be celebration all around. Restrain from crying, wailing and tearing clothes), his will states.

I get up to go. Ghulam Wani looks at me pleadingly and says his family needs help. “Those years were important; it was when Mushtaq could have got a job. But we have nothing except this one shop and I am an old man. Please help”, he says.

Assuring him, I walk towards the road. My colleagues are talking about the Fidayeen attacks that have rocked Srinagar’s Lal Chowk. I wonder what conviction; what strength of character makes these men and realise that it is this blood that has kept the movement going on for so long.

In the fading evening light, Ejaz’s words fill my thoughts:
Kiya hai paesh lahoo watan walon, Chaman walon.
Humein bhi yaad kar lena Chaman mein jab bahar aaye.