It was at about 3 am and i was in deep and sound sleep when all of a sudden my grandama started wailing and shouting loudly. I woke up and found all the family members with yellow faded faces there in my room. My parents, uncle, aunt and my little brother all present there. I was shocked to see every one wailing. My uncle in a frightful voice shouted at me and said 'Nayyar…. come on, get up quickly, put on your clothes'. I was somewhat amazed and frightened but without saying a word, i quickly wore my pheren and cap and sat in one cornor of my room.
All of a sudden i heard a huge blast like sound; soon i realized it was gunfight that has raged in the village. After the blast, the guns started roaring and my grandma fell unconscious. My mother started rubbing her hands, feet, sprinkling water to bring her out from unconscious state. Finally after half an hour and after our struggle she was back in her normal consciousness.
It was winter, the temperature was sub-zero, I was shivering with cold and everyone was in such fear that nobody dared to move out from the room and arrange a Kangri. I would never forget that frightful seen.
After a while someone’s phone began ringing, my father picked up the phone ,it was our cousin, living in same locality, calling and enquiring about the blasts and firing going on. We had no idea about the epicentre of the gunfight.
Now it was 4 am an hour or two to fajar when somebody started shouting slogans and appealing the youngesters to come out of their homes on the loudspeaker of our local jamia masjid. It added more to our fear.
We were half dead when all of a sudden somebody hurriedly started knocking our front main door. Already gunshots and now this knocking sound frightened us more. Nobody dared to see who was knocking there at the door but suddenly we discovered our elder uncle, who lives nearby, to be there shouting. Hurriedly my father got up and opened the front door .Uncle came in saying "today no one here is going to survive, everyone would be killed, whole village is cordoned off and army has blasted Yousuf's house", yousuf was a peon by profession and was working since decades in our local school.
After hearing the heart wrenching words we all fell in deep shock and our eyes got filled with tears. Now it was the time of fajr prayers, we were in a state of trepidation and we prayed for the sake of it.
After it, we had our tea and it was about 7 am, still the guns roaring . After an hour we heard a huge bang like sound and we presumed the gunfight likely to be ended as the house was blasted and the hiding militants would have died- the set procedure to end the encounter.
Now the firing stopped and only thing which was audible or could be heard was the noise of people who came from the adjoin villages visiting the gunfight site.
It was some sort of relief for us when somebody on phone told that the army has left the village and cordon has been called off.
We came out and joined the masses who were shouting pro azadi slogans.
On reaching the site we found one local rebel gunned down and an army man killed.
The house were the slain militiant had been hiding was fully raised to ground and its flames were kissing the sky. For about 4 days people used to visit the encounter site amid slogans and complete shutdown. The frightful night keeps me haunting even today and i dont want any more to recall back the moments …..
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Author is studying medical sciences and can be reached at mirnayyarazam@gmail.com
