SRINAGAR: In Kashmir, where rivers swell with snowmelt, and roads wind through crowded villages and tourist towns, Sunday became a day of unbearable grief for several families. In three separate tragedies across the Valley, fathers and sons were caught together in moments of death and survival, revealing, once again, the instinctive and eternal bond between a father and his child.
n two incidents, fathers jumped into danger to save their sons but could not return themselves safely. In another, a father survived only to witness the death of his young son beside him.
The stories unfolded within hours of each other in Pahalgam, Bandipora and Pulwama, leaving Kashmir shaken by a painful pattern of loss and sacrifice.
In the tourist resort of Pahalgam, 42-year-old Mohammad Ashraf Mir of Jawahar Nagar, Srinagar, had gone for a family outing along the Lidder River. Near the Kolahoi Green Hotel in Langanbal, his son Fahad reportedly slipped into the fast-flowing river while the family was taking photographs.
Without hesitation, Mir jumped into the icy waters to save him.
Locals nearby managed to rescue the child, but Mir himself was swept away by the strong current and went missing. Rescue teams, including the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local rafting teams, continued searches late into the evening.
Further north in Bandipora, the tragedy unfolded differently.
Eighteen-year-old Obaid Shabir died after he and his father, Shabir Ahmad Wani of Nadihal, were swept away by sudden strong currents in Nala Sorindar while bathing. Rescue teams and locals retrieved both from the stream, but Obaid could not survive. His father, critically injured, was shifted to Srinagar for specialised treatment.
And in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, another father-son pair met tragedy on the road instead of the river.
Thirty-year-old Altaf Ahmed Shergojri and his minor son Eeman Altaf were allegedly hit by an unknown Tata Mobile vehicle in Arihal in a hit-and-run incident. Both suffered severe head injuries and were rushed to the hospital, where doctors declared the child dead. The father survived with injuries and remains under treatment.
Across these tragedies runs one haunting thread, fathers trying to protect their children until the very last moment, and sons caught in circumstances beyond anyone’s control.
By evening, rescue teams were still combing the waters of the Lidder River while grieving families gathered in hospitals and homes across Kashmir. For many, the incidents became more than isolated accidents. They became painful reminders of how deeply fathers and sons remain tied to one another — in fear, in sacrifice, in survival, and sometimes, in loss.
