ISLAMABAD - Mixed sentiments of pride and pain greet the bereaved families as military recovery teams dig out the bodies of the buried soldiers in Gayari sector.
The pre-dawn hours of this year’s April 7 brought along for Pakistan’s military what could have been never pre-empted, not even in the wildest stretches of one’s imaginations - The army’s 6th Northern Light Infantry (NLI) got wiped out from the face of the planet - Some 139 men including one short of a dozen civilians went fatally entrapped under tonnes of rubble after a deadly avalanche thundering to descend from over an 18,000 feet high mountain peak in the Siachin region brought down a large sedimentation on the battalion headquarters-So intense and enormous was the impact and scope of the destruction that all the efforts to track some ray of life from the dampened-to-death excavates of rock-hard rubbles died down as time went by. The foreign rescue teams that had landed in the glacier belt for some initial rescue-mandated assistance had their hands up soon after getting to have been privy to the gravity of the situation.
The 50th day of the military-led recovery efforts, boosted with the high command’s resolve not to capitulate no matter what it took - finally brought some bliss for all with the recovery of first body of the buried lot - Sepoy Muhammad Hussain’s corpse was found on May 27. Some eight other bodies have since been recovered including that of Commanding Officer’s 6th NLI Lieutenant Colonel Tanvir-ul-Hassan. Search for finding out others goes on round-the-clock, according to military.
For the families of those recovered, pain revisits but blended with the tickling flavour of an overwhelmingly nationalistic pride. “The sight of his mutilated body pricked me from within but then the distinguished title the nature had conferred upon me just carried me away,” said Muhammad Ali, brother of Sepoy Muhammad Hussain.
Hailing from Skardu, Ali works with a private company as salesman in Clifton, Karachi. “There’s nothing more prideful than brothering a martyr.” Ali is the second in four brothers, Hussain was the eldest.
Both the brothers last met in the past September during Eid-ul-Fitr. “ It was a memorable time. We work in different places. Seldom do we get a chance to get together. For us, Eid is when we are together. I really cherish those moments.” Ali could not visit his family during Eid-ul-Azha when he preferred staying in Karachi due to his own reasons while his brother had to stay in Gayari. The late sepoy last talked to the younger Ali through a wireless phone on November 7. It was Eid-ul-Azha then. “He asked me to pray for his life and success. My prayers are granted I guess. He lives eternally and has succeeded in such a big way one can only wish for.” Muhammad Hussain was to get married next year.
Wishing not to be identified, a female family member of another soldier Sepoy Muhammad Rashid, whose body has also recently been recovered, said she fainted upon getting to know that Rashid got buried under tonnes of rubble. “I prayed for his life but my heart feared he would not make it. I kept praying till his body was handed to us. For nearly two months we desperately tried to get hold of him but it was like pain and agony revisited us when we actually saw him dead.” Rashid, father of three little ones, belonged to Gaunche, another district of Gilgit-Baltistan. His family lives there in their ancestral home. The sepoy last visited his home in earlier last March, just around a month before the incident had occurred. “It was more difficult to accept that he got buried there and was never to come back because he was with us just a few days before the Gayari incident. He was on fifteen days leave and when he left, we did not know he was never to come back,” the family member said. “The kids miss him. They want to know where their father has gone. We tell them he is very much here with us-cannot be seen though.” With the improvement in weather, the rescue teams have attained a major breakthrough by reaching out to some of the dead bodies. Officials say, all possible efforts are afoot to recover the bodies before the arrival of monsoon when heavy downpour would pose a major challenge to hamper the ongoing operation in Gayari.
For the families of those found out and the ones yet to be found, the pain comes afresh and so is the pride.