They migrated alongside pandits from different parts of the state to live in the safer environs of Jammu.
MUTHI CAMP/JAMMU: Inside a dingy one-room tenement, forty-year-old widow Aisha Begum serves food to her three children. For 17 years, Aisha raised her children in this small room after her farmer husband was killed by militants in cold blood, forcing her to migrate to Jammu from Kandi-Kupwara.
Suffering in silence, Aisha now represents the 2,800 registered Muslim families who too migrated alongside pandits from different parts of the state to live in the safe environs of Jammu. Some of them are living in camps, while others are putting up in rented accommodations in different parts of Jammu.
"I had to leave everything back home and flee to Jammu with my three children. My husband's body was not handed over to me. Even the police did not register an FIR making things complicated for us," says Aisha. Tragedy revisited her again when her brother and father too were mowed down by the militants in Kupwara. "For the last 17 years, I have visited my home only once---that is last year. Such was the fear that I did not move out of my home. And within a few days, I came again to Jammu to be with my family," she adds.
Fifty yards away from her tenement lives Ali Mohammad, a tailor from Anantnag. He migrated to Jammu in 1992 after he was tortured by militants on the pretext that he works for the army. Ali's crime was that he was stitching the uniform of force personnel to eke out his living. "One day a group of militants picked me up, took me to their hideout and tortured me brutally. Later, I went to the army camp and sought protection. Within a night I packed my bags and fled with my family to Jammu," he says.
Ali cared too little for her house, land, orchids and other amenities and fled to Jammu just to be safe. Today, he is stitching clothes for the migrants in the camp to eke out living. "I have a huge family of three daughters and a son to feed. I cannot survive on Rs 3000 relief money and some ration. That is why I stitch the clothes of my fellow migrants to earn some money to feed my family," he adds.
Ali and Aisha are two of the three families living in migrant camps in Muthi Jammu. According to Vinod Koul, migrant relief commissioner Jammu, there are around 2800 Muslims who too migrated from Kashmir after being victimised by militants.
"There are 36000 total families registered as migrants with us. Of them 2800 are Muslim families and the rest are pandits. Most of the Muslims families migrated from Kashmir. The migration started 1990 onwards and it continued on regular intervals," says Koul.
Muslim migrants too are getting relief money at par with the pandits in Jammu. "We pay them Rs 4000 monthly plus monthly ration free of cost. Besides, there are other amenities kept available for migrants," says Koul.
For these Muslims, pandits are the comrades-in-arms. The camps present the picture of mini-India where Muslims and pandits live tighter sharing sorrow, happiness. "We rely on them and they rely on us. We are one family because all of us have suffered together," says Ali.
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