The 82-yeard old patriarch of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Pir Ghulam Hassan Shah stranded in his Shivpora locality house in flood-hit Srinagar near the 15 Corps Army Headquarters, owes his life to Google map coordinates, matched in London.
His son-in-law, a consultant at the Pune-based Armed Forces Medical College was in London, when floods struck the city. Unnerved at the reports of rising water level in Shivpora locality and in absence of any communication, he used his resources to plead with the Army to rescue his ailing and aging father-in-law.
The Major-General at Pune suggested if he could send them google map coordinates of Pir's house so that they can rescue the legendary chief of Jammu and Kashmir Police, who in 70s was credited with breaking the back of militant outfit Al-Fatah and earlier foiling Pakistani infiltration attempts in 1965. The doctor son-in-law spent an hour locating Shivpora and the particular house on Google map and recorded its coordinates. "Once coordinates were identified, we conveyed them to the Army," said a relative of Pir.
With right connections, the Army reached Pir's house within an hour in a boat and rescued him. Army sources said Pir and his servant when rescued were in a semi-conscious state without food and water.
The floods have also exposed inefficiency, insensitivity of the local administration. Case in point is Kashmiri's first Muslim IAS officer Mohammad Shafi Pandit. On September 6, he found water levels in Jhelum rising. Contrary to chief minister Omar Abdullah's assertions that his administration had forewarned people and they didn't pay any attention, the former officer, who has been a divisional commission of Kashmir, contacted the district magistrate, who allayed his fears.
On September 7, Pandit was back at Jhelum and spotted a crack in its embankment. He immediately contacted the chief engineer of flood control department, who again assured that it was not a breach, but a small crack, which they will repair soon.
The engineer said his men were alert and will not allow embankments to be breached. Upon returning home, when he was sipping tea with his wife, water gushed in. "My wife and I ran away as fast as we could," said the former top officer.
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