Two children of a nomadic family died due to frosty weather in two days in south Kashmir’s Kulgam, where the family has set up a temporary shelter on the highway leading to Jammu’s Reasi district.
An official said Sahil Zubair, 10, and Shazia, 6, died due to dip in the night temperature. South Kashmir has been witnessing a minimum of minus eight degrees Celsius for the past one week.
“Zubair died on Saturday and Shazia on the intervening night of January 16-17. The Bakerwal family was living inside a tent on the roadside. The cold wave resulted in their deaths, preliminary reports suggest,” the official said.
Senior officials from the district, including a tehsildar, have visited Zubair Ahmad Mandar, father of the victims.
The family had set up a tent at Birnal Lammar area of Kulgam’s Devsar, which is reeling under a cold wave due to sub-zero temperature. They were heading to Jammu’s Reasi district from Kulgam.
The nomadic community in Kashmir keeps moving from summer pastures of Kashmir to winter pastures of the Jammu plains every year. The community has asked the administration to provide basic facilities to the nomads on the move to stop such incidents.
“We demand the authorities to set up shelters on the way to help such families not to put up under the open sky in this frosty weather,” Noor Khan, a nomad, said.
Apni Party leader Abdul Majeed Padder said such families should be provided with comfortable accommodations on the way.
“The untimely death of these two kids is appalling, unfortunate and heart wrenching. I urge the administration to provide necessary aid to such families who are facing severe problems this winter due to extreme cold,” Mr. Padder said.
He demanded that the divisional administration in Kashmir should “issue advisories so that the vulnerable sections of society do not face such a situation”.
