Srinagar : At around 10 pm on Thursday, Bashir Ahmd Sheikh,25, a pigeon fancier retired to bed as usual after feeding the passel of pigeons he had been rearing for the past many years. In the dead of night, the ear-splitting cries emanating from the neighbourhood woke him up and as he peeped through his window he saw some houses had caught fire.
Sheikh rushed to put out the flames but the intensity of fire was such that within few minutes it became a huge conflagration.
“The fire soon licked my house”, said Shiekh .
Sheikh got antsy and tried to make a dash for his attic to salvage his most treasured possession–the pigeons.
“But before I could do anything, the fire had already engulfed the top story of my house”, said Sheikh.
The fire devoured around 200 pigeons of Sheikh worth Rs 2 lakh.
“Everything reduced to ashes before my eyes and I could not do anything. I even failed to save a single bird”, Sheikh said.
The fire completely destroyed the three storied house of Sheikh, which was constructed by his family decades ago in Noorbagh Sheikh Colony of Srinagar.
The fire left around 32 families from the subaltern community, mostly working as sweepers and sanitation workers homeless. Amidst a chaos and cacophony of noises, the local residents tried hard to douse the flames. At least three persons suffered burn injuries in the process.
“By the time, the fire trucks showed up in the area, the flames had already engulfed several houses”, said another resident, whose house suffered a partial damage in the fire.
Sheikh, an auto driver by profession had been rearing pigeons for the past 8 to 10 years and some times he would also sell the birds to supplement his meager income.
“I’m badly off. The protracted lock-downs over the past few years hit us badly”, Sheikh said.
He said that when the COVID-19 brought the entire world to a standstill, he kept himself busy with the pigeons.
“They used to give me a hope and helped me to battle the pandemic depression”, Sheikh said.
He said that everything he had went up in smoke .
The local residents had begun collecting the donations for the homeless families.
Gowhar Ahmad, a young man from the area said that they were trying to collect donations from the people to help the victims’ families.
Kashmir Red Cross Society distributed utensils, blankets and food packets among the affected families.
The authorities have also sent it’s teams to the spot to assess the loss so that compensation could be given to the affected families.
“Will the authorities count my burnt pigeons too? asks Sheikh.
