CRPF troopers stop ambulances from ferrying bodies

Waiting for the burial
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Rising Kashmir August 27

CRPF troopers stop ambulances from ferrying bodies
Hakeem Irfan
Srinagar, Aug 26: The bodies of patients who died during the past three days are stuck in hospitals of Kashmir valley as paramilitary CRPF troopers are targeting hospital vehicles and ambulances.
Hospital officials said Kashmir is facing a medical emergency and a major crisis.
They said that the bodies of patients who are dying in the hospital are lying inside the hospital for the past three days as the CRPF troopers attacked the ambulances which were taking these bodies to their families.
An ambulance driver of SHMS hospital pleading anonymity fearing reprisal from the CRPF troopers said: “I don’t have the courage to ferry another body. On Monday I ferried a body and the troopers attacked my ambulance and went hammer and tong on me as well as the family members of the dead. They didn’t even respect the body and misbehaved with it.”
Another lady doctor in the hospital said while she accompanied a patient in another ambulance, the CRPF troopers ransacked it and added that the policemen deployed at the spot had saved her from the wrath of the CRPF troopers.
Javed Ahmed, a resident of Trehgam Kupwara whose father who was ailing for quite sometime now and passed in SMHS hospital on Monday said, “It is a pity that I am not able to take the body of my father home. The poor ambulance driver is not ready to take me because he fears the troopers will kill him as well as me if we take my father’s body to my home in the ambulance.”
A doctor posted at the SMHS hospital said that a patient from Damhal Hanjipora lost her eye as it could not be operated at the right time. “The CRPF troopers did not allow me to come out of my house although I told them that I had to perform an important operation at the hospital,” he said.
The hospital officials said that the hospital had ran out of drugs and added that only one medical shop outside is open which has also ran out of stock.