Martyr’s Son Appeals to J&K LG: Build Virtual Museum, Multi-Pronged Support for Healing & Justice My father’s name was Mohammad Ashraf Mir. He was the Chief Conservative Forest, North Circle in Jammu & Kashmir. When he was returning home near Kupwara after a meeting with the Governor, just a few kilometres from home, an ambush was laid and he was martyred there by militants. My mother and younger brother had to migrate from Kupwara, Jammu & Kashmir. We have been living in Srinagar since 1995. Life has been full of struggles, said the martyr’s son. There has been social struggle, culture struggle as we had to fit into a whole new culture. Psychological problems creeped in. Within two months of my father’s demise we had to leave Kupwara. The resident SP of that area suggested to my mother to migrate from Kupwara as anything could happen. My mother was very young at the time of my father’s death. But she did not remaarry and chose to dedicate her life to the mission of her husband and raised her three children. She struggled as a teacher and did her best to give us the best of education. Now when I think about it, two things could have happened at that time after what happened to us, I could have gone into revolt mode, eye for eye and neck for neck, that kind of thing. I could have taken a gun in my hand and I could have fought that way too. But my mother told me to focus on my studies and teach others as well. Now for the last ten years I have been teaching the Indian Constitution of Governance to Kashmir’s youth, the martyr’s son said. In Kashmir, even a blind person can say that the blood has stopped and the work of stopping the blood was done by the Narendra Modi led government in Kashmir by the Lieutenant Governor administration. A person is made by his environment. In the absence of relatives and brothers and sisters whom you cannot see or meet, who cannot come to your house in the hour of need, nor can you visit them, this not being able to talk leads to a deep psychological trauma that gets built in inside which later manifests in dementia or some other ailments. We were young and we somehow adapted, but our parents were mature and they got impacted and carried the trauma inside them and are now affected with dementia or hypertension. The Government needs to make efforts to create a holistic programme specially designed for migrant families both Hindus as well as Muslims where their psychological conditions can be monitored and efforts can be made to heal them. What we lost, we lost, we sacrificed it for the country and for the sake of humanity. If that is the sacrifice it took to get the world’s attention to the sufferings that people of Kashmir have been undergoing then we are happy that we gave our childhood if through that you understand what all things have happened to us. If after that pain your eyes fell on that conflict then we are happy that we sacrificed our childhood. I know the struggles of those families. If my mother was not earning then life would have been different for me and my brothers. It is different for the rest of the people whose mothers and fathesr are not in Govt jobs. My request to the Lieutenant Governor Shri Manoj Sinha that these are families that took the brunt of the situation on the front and the burn. Not like the hard core nationalists who saved their skin and fled. They are those families which sacrificed their loved ones for the nation. The approach for such families cannot be a single program because the problems of each one is different. Not everybody wants money, they just want to see their childhood homes, in whose memories they have spent their days. Somebody wants compensation to sustain themselves. to eat. Somebody wants recognition. Some want that their story should come forward. Hence, it cannot be a single aimed programme for these families dear Lieutenant Governor. It has to be a multi-pronged approach. We can create virtual museums. For those families who are afraid to come home to Kashmir, we can document their homes and their surrounding in virtual museum. The whole world is doing that.They can then see from anywhere in the world. We have to come up with a scheme where we bring a social security net for these people. We will have to take care of them because these families are working on a mere sustainance level. We will also have to give psychological, social benefits to them like free medical checkups and free medicines. We have to honour them is some way through awards. Many sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. And to those whom we have forgotten they desrve to be remembered, said the martyr Mohammad Ashraf Mir’s son.