SRINAGAR: In the quiet, misty hours after dawn, when the valley still echoed with the last murmurs of the Fajr prayer, tragedy struck Charsoo village on the national highway, not once, but twice.
It began with Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, a 58-year-old man from Charsoo, who had set out early, perhaps for work, perhaps for a routine morning walk, moving towards the direction of Anantnag. The air was cold, the road still damp with night dew. As he walked on the margins of his side of the highway, a speeding Swift car appeared — swift, sudden, merciless. Within seconds, Ghulam Mohammad lay motionless on the asphalt on the other side of the road. By the time people rushed from nearby homes, the stillness had already settled in. His journey had ended before the day had truly begun.
Word of the accident spread like a shadow through Charsoo. By mid-morning, people had begun to gather at his modest home, offering condolences, reciting verses, speaking softly in disbelief. Among those who came was Khateeja, his close relative, a woman from Mundoora in Tral. She had travelled to Charsoo to grieve with the family, to console them, to stand by them in sorrow.
She reached safely and intended to join the mourners. Tears were shared, memories recalled. As she prepared to leave, she stepped out to cross the same road, just a few metres from where Ghulam Mohammad had fallen. A young boy on a motorcycle came speeding down the highway. Perhaps he saw her too late, perhaps the brakes failed, perhaps fate had simply written its cruelest script. The collision threw her to the ground. Villagers rushed again, disbelief turning to horror.
Khateeja was taken first to the local Primary Health Centre at Awantipora, then referred to SMHS Hospital in Srinagar. But her injuries were grave. By the afternoon, word came again, she too was gone.
Two deaths, a few hours apart. Two lives bound by blood ended on the same stretch of road. The village of Charsoo, already steeped in mourning, fell silent once more. Women wailed, men stood helpless, and the road, the same unremarkable strip of tarmac, became a place of dread and grief.
In the fading evening light, as the azaan echoed again over Charsoo, the people of the village spoke in whispers about destiny, about how, on this day, sorrow had come not once but twice to the same doorstep, carried on the wheels of fate.
