J&K floods: Desperate hunt for the missing in submerged colonies

Mehjoornagar: A group of locals is keenly looking for somebody in a flooded colony of Mehjoornagar in uptown area of Srinagar.

They are searching for a Sikh woman who is believed to have drowned during the water surge five days ago. A Sikh man identified as 35-year-old Gagan also drowned around the same time and his body was recovered two days back.

However, the woman is still untraceable and locals wonder why there is no sign of hers even after passage of so many days.

Significantly, nobody in the locality knows her name as she was a tenant although some locals have some other information about her.

"The woman was the tenant in the house of one Pritam Singh, who works with J&K Bank in Jammu. Her husband was away in Pahalgam," says one Sukhwinder Kaur who along with her husband was discussing with other locals about the fate of the woman who they believe also drowned.

When the water levels were rising, her landlady vacated the house and asked her also to leave. But since her husband was away, she decided to stay put in the locality and moved to the neighbouring house of Gagan, according to Sukhwinder and others.

She also knows that the "deceased" woman has two sons who study outside Jammu and Kashmir but there is no consensus among them over the place. Some of them say they study in Delhi but some others say Chandigarh.

However, there is unanimity among them about one thing - "Enough was not done by the state administration" in terms of rescue and relief.

They feel that the woman and Gagan could have been saved if the administration had acted in time.

While they are discussing this issue, a man comes announcing "does anybody here know Rais Ahmed Bhat"?

Asked why he is looking for Bhat, the man says,"his body has been found in Noorbagh area and documents on him show his residence as Mehjoornagar". The deceased is aged around 35 years.

The people gathered there look at each other but nobody seems to know the person and the man moves on, making the announcement.