Teachers play rescuers for 200 students in Jammu and Kashmir floods

Traumatised by four-day long ordeal in a submerged indoor stadium in Srinagar, over 200 students now rescued by the Army cursed state government for false assurances but give credit of their survival to the teachers. "I am alive because of my teachers. This second life of all of us was a gift to all of us by them who were more than our parents to us in the battle for life and death," said Amit, a student trapped in the stadium.

The students, who were trapped for past four days and now evacuated in a joint meticulous operation by Indian Army jawans, CRPF and sports teachers, gave credit for their survival to S Charak, a teacher and Taekwondo expert. After four days of battling in the flood water without food, 200 students were rescued by the Army and taken out to safe shelters today. Narrating his experience of leading his students to safety, Charak said when water level went up, we along with few students broke the wall expecting that it will go down but it ultimately went up further due to flooding.

"We formed boats from foam mattresses with the help of some students and took one by one the students to safety (on the higher side of the indoor stadium). We were later helped by the CRPF who prepared a bridge for us to go up," Charak said. In this way we managed to take all the children to safe place, where they remained trapped for last few days, he said adding, finally Army carried out the rescue operation to evacuate us. Quoting "Himat-e-Marda, Madad-e-Khuda", the teacher said that they worked in a united manner to achieve this mission.