One year post-Op Sindoor, survivors try to pick up threads of life

JAMMU:
Pakistan’s intense shelling on Poonch city during India’s Operation Sindoor has not only left behind a trail of death and destruction but also deep scars on the psyche of survivors
“We lost our only son Vihaan Bhargav. He was just 13. Our world has been turned upside down and our lives have never been the same again,” says, Sanjeev Kumar Bhargav, a government teacher.
Vihaan lost his life after a Pakistani mortar shell hit their car in Bhainch.
The shell hit the little boy on his head. The sight of his scalp hanging and blood oozing out of his head was heart wrenching.
“No medals, memorial plaques or words of sympathies can heal our wounds.,” he says and refuses to speak further
Ajay Maini, Sanjeev’s colleague and friend, says, Sanjeev and his wife have gone into depression since death of their only son.
“They barely eat. Though Sanjeev tends to his duties at the government school, he has lost interest in life,” adds Maini.
“Since we are colleagues, he keeps remembering Vihaan during our discussions and cries profusely. I fall short of words and find it difficult to console him because they have lost their only son, who was just 13 years old,” says Maini.
After braving Pak shelling during the intervening night of May 6 and 7, Bhargav and his family were fleeing Poonch town when their Maruti Swift car was hit by Pak artillery fire at Bhainch on NH144-A.
Maini says, “Poonch has always bore the brunt of Indo-Pak hostilities , “around 1.15 AM on Wednesday we woke up to loud explosions. I went upstairs on the roof and saw mortars being fired at the town. I huddled my wife and two children to a room and prayed for our lives.”
Maini lived in Mohalla Sandigate in Poonch town.
Old people recall that never before Pakistan rained so many mortars on Poonch town, not even during 1971 war compared to what they did during Operation Sindoor.
World has moved on but Poonch town still mourn its dead that included tender buds like Vihaan, Zain and Zoya.
For the unversed, Poonch town is surrounded by Pakistan from Ajote, Digwar, Malti and Gulpur sectors where it sits on dominating positions.
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