Peerzada Arshad Hamid

Srinagar

The death of a minor in a shell blast in Khundroo Village this week has once again brought to surface the danger lying scattered in the villages around the depot. The Village had been reportedly cleared of ammunition by the Army before handing over to residents. But the blast occurred in a house days after the villagers had returned to their houses.

The blast took place in residential house of Ghulam Muhammad Shah, on September 4, causing on the spot death of his minor son, Mudassir Ahmad Shah. The blast also injured six more people.    

The Army spokesman however shrugged off the responsibility by claiming that the shells were brought in by locals from outside the village. Later the Army also seized more ammunition scrap from the area, and held people responsible for the tragedy.

However, just by claiming that local people were involved in gathering the ammunition scrap and even hoarding it for smuggling, the army authorities cannot shrug off their responsibility from the issue.

The fact remains that a lot of lethal scrap, and shells are scattered in fields and   orchards over a large area, and are within easy reach of local people especially children. The incidents of hoarding by some people, and fiddling by children only adds to put more responsibility on the Army to get the whole area cleared quickly.

The government should also look into the matter, and press the Army for the speedy clearance of orchards and fields.

The speedy clearance is also essential for people to be able to resume their lives and use their orchards and fields again.

Keeping the Khundroo blaze in mind and looking at the magnitude of problems created by the incident, the government should also focus its attention on shifting the ammunition depots from civilian area. Not only Khundroo but similar ammunition depots of the Army scattered in the Valley should be shifted to safer locations.

However Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s statement over the issue that ammunition depots could not be shifted, only speaks of the irresponsible attitude of the government. It also gives and indication of the distance between the government and the people in Kashmir.

As a responsible chief minister, caring for his people, Azad should have pressurized New

Delhi to shift the depots from civilian areas. Rather he chose to give a clean chit to Army and New Delhi by saying that populations have grown over decades and come closer to the ammunition depots.