A TALE OF MILITANT COMMANDER'S WIDOW How Hurriyat forgets its own people criticises their role,Appreciates Asiya Andrabi

INB KASHMIR :One year after their marriage, her husband, a top militant commander, was killed in an encounter in Rainawari area of old city, leaving her all alone to struggle with life.Khalida, then only 18, faced all this with full strength and determination. Although, several problems like financial issues came her way but despite all this she brought up her two children- Abida and son Asif.She says she has grievances with Huriyat. “They never cared about our miserable situation. I am not a single case, there are thousands like me,” she says in a broken voice. But at the same time she has praise for Dukhtaran-e-Millat Chief Asiya Andrabi saying without Andrabi it would not have been possible to stand all alone against these miseries that too as a woman.“Besides some financial help Andrabi always encouraged me. Today whatever I am, credit goes to her,” she said.Recently, after facing severe criticism and getting an earful from the victims of conflict, Hurriyat (M) chairman had also admitted that they had forgotten the victims as they lacked the system to reach out to these people.Khalida while narrating her ordeal says soon after her husband died in 1995, she approached senior Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani for some assistance. After introducing herself as widow of a ‘martyr who laid down his life in the ongoing freedom struggle’, Geelani Sahab had then promised her that she would be given Rs 1000 per month to meet her two ends. She got this assurance from the separatist leader at a time when she had a daughter in lap and was also expecting another baby.“But the aid was provided only once. Next month when I again approached Hurriyat office for getting the aid, Geelani Sahab there said you have no need to visit the Hurriyat office. Our people will be visiting your house every month with the financial aid. Since then I have seen nobody coming my home. They forgot me. I have regrets,” she said.Khalida was then only 18 years old when she married an active militant Muhammad Yousuf and spent her married life in forests and mountain zones of North Kashmir, but those happy moments didn’t last long and ended on their first marriage anniversary.Khalida presently lives in single room which serves both as a kitchen and bedroom. She has partitioned the room with a thin curtain so that one side would serve as a kitchen and the other a bedroom.Recalling those days, Khalida clad in a veil sitting at her home in Shaheed Gunj says she married to Yousuf on September 1, 1994 and lived her married life in forests and mountain ranges of Bandipora and Baramulla as her husband hailed from a Bandipora Village. Yousuf alias Tipu sultan was the District Commander of militant outfit Hizbul Mujahiddin so it turned more difficult for her to settle at one place for a long time even at her in laws home.“I too played hide and seek with him. The injury marks of thorns are still visible on my hands and feet. But whatsoever those were beautiful days for me,” she says while pointing towards the I-card of Yousuf, an employee in Kashmir University who had later joined militancy in early 1990’s.When she gave birth to a girl child at Rainawari her husband came to see his daughter. In the meantime army had laid a cordon and killed her husband.It was September 1, 1995, the first anniversary of their marriage, when her husband was killed. “My celebration not only turned into mourning but a new chapter of life began… today I am here with my two kids,” she concludes.