Pulwama, July 12: The killing of her minor son, SalikIqbal Sheikh, has sent Ruksana into a deep state of trauma.
As she wails, she keeps recalling scenes how Saliq along with his two cousins and two friends, all minors, were ripped apart by an explosion in Menander village of south Kashmir’s Shopian district on Wednesday.
“They were playing with a mobile phone and I was looking at them sitting on a veranda,” Ruksana says. “They made a video call to their cousin, who had purchased a new phone.”
She said Salik was talking to his cousin on the video call while he was surrounded by his two cousins, Tahir and Raziya and two friends, Arsalan and Suhaib.
“Suddenly there was a loud bang and I found them on the ground, withering in pain,” Ruksana says. “The explosion ripped their hands apart.”
Seeing her son, nephew, niece and two neighbouring kids in a pool of blood, she started making frenetic calls for help.
With a heavy heart, the mother rushed to the spot from the veranda and picked up her son and one more injured kid and ferried them to the hospital.
“He died in my lap, I couldn’t make it to the hospital,” she says wailing.
Ruksana thinks the explosive was hurled over them.
She has been traumatized after watching her son dead and her brother’s kids, Tahir and Raziya severely wounded.
“I can’t forget the horrific scene when the explosion tossed these innocent kids up in the air and ripped their body parts apart,” Ruksana says. “I saw amputated arm of my son and I saw the mobile phone Salik was talking on by the side of his amputated arm.”
Locals believe that the explosive substance was thrown toward the kids while they were playing in their courtyard.
Five children, all minors, were injured in the mysterious blast.
The injured were shifted to District Hospital Shopian where doctors declared Salik brought dead while three of the four injured were shifted to SMHS Hospital, Srinagar in critical condition and the fourth to Bone and Joint Hospital, Srinagar.
Senior Superintendent of Police, Shopian, SandeepChaudhry told Rising Kashmir that Wednesday afternoon few children were injured in a mysterious explosion at Memander village of Shopian.
“The children were fiddling with an explosive substance, and one child lost his life while four others were injured,” he said.
Police said the explosion occurred in the courtyard of the house of Khursheed Ahmad Sheikh, son of Abdul Gani of Sheikh Nag in Memandar, Shopian.
