Baramulla, May 8: When the shell crashed through the roof just past 2 am, Badruddin Naik wasn’t asleep. He hadn’t closed his eyes all night, his ears tuned to the anxious silence of the border, bracing for the sound he feared most. Within seconds, it came – a thunderclap of fire and smoke that reduced his home in Salamabad Uri’s Nowpora village to rubble and scattered his family into chaos.
Now, three hospital beds in the emergency ward of Government Medical College (GMC) Baramulla hold what remains of that night – Badruddin with his bandaged head, his eight-year-old son Rehan silent and stunned beside him, and across the room, his wife Rubeena Begum, coughing from the smoke that seeped into her lungs as her world collapsed.
Their story is not rare in this corner of Kashmir, where borders are lines drawn not just on maps but across lives.
Yet for the Naik family, May 7 marked the precise moment peace was torn away – and survival became their only reality.
In an interaction with Greater Kashmir, Bardudin Naik recalled the moment on the intervening night of May 6 and 7 when they lost everything.
“My kids and my wife were sleeping calmly but I could not sleep that night as there were already rumours of war between the two countries (India and Pakistan). Exactly at around 2 am, a shell hit our house from the top and within seconds our home was razed to the ground,” Badruddin said.
With this, we were left shattered, he added. Within moments, the modest home was reduced to rubble, leaving the family members grievously injured and homeless, said Naik.
“I don’t know whether I was hit with a shell or some heavy log of wood of my house. It was a loud bang and everything around us started falling,” said Badruddin on how the houses in the village were razed.
As their house was reduced to rubble, the whole family ran for life.
“It was all chaos. Blood was oozing out from my head and suddenly I saw Rehan in the same condition as he was hit in his head,” he said. Naik said his two elder sons lost contact with the family while everyone was running for life.
“Till 5 am, I could not locate my family. The local Police along with SHO reached the spot and evacuated us to safer places,” he said.
Pointing towards his eight-year-old son, who is in shock, Badruddin said the Army of the two countries can fight while ensuring the civilian population does not become the first casualty.
“We always bear the brunt whenever tension escalates at the border. And today we have lost everything. I saw my house burning and now we have no shelter,” he said.
Rubeena Begum, who is married in Salamabad village, said they were living in peace till May 7.
“Now, I am lying here in hospital and my elder sons are at the house of one of our relatives. Our family is disturbed and we have lost everything,” she said.
As the family was recounting the horror, an official from the civil administration approached the distressed family saying that the district administration had set up shelter for the victim families who lost their houses in cross-border shelling.
“Once you get discharged from here, you can stay in a shelter set up in the college here,” the officer informed the family and left.
Meanwhile, Badruddin said he will keep his wife and son at the facility set up by the district administration and visit his village soon after getting discharged from the hospital. “There is no other option. We lost the house but we have to rebuild it again at the same place. We have no other place to live,” he said.
Besides this family, two other injured residents were also admitted to GMC Baramulla. “We are in distress. We become the first target during war or ceasefire violations. We appeal to both governments to maintain peace,” said another resident from Salamabad, who had come to see the injured Badruddin.
