Srinagar: The air was thick with tension. Indian Army soldiers had surrounded a Kashmir village following a tip-off that terrorists were holed up inside somewhere. It was then two men came forward tentatively to say to the Indian Army personnel to say a young girl was seriously unwell. Within seconds, the wireless buzzed – ‘All stations on hold’.
The cordon and search operation (CASO) at Kralkhod village in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district was immediately suspended Sunday. A medical officer accompanying the troops was sent to attend to the 11-year-old, Army officials said.
The child was lying on the floor with her jaws clenched and a high pulse rate. She had signs of seizures, said Captain Sanjana Sharma, a resident medical officer attached to 1-Rashtriya Rifles. “I checked her vitals which were fine except for her pulse rate which was very high. She had a bout of seizures. The focus was to stabilise her condition. Once that goal was achieved, her parents were asked to take her to a district hospital where she could be shown to a neurologist,” Sharma, a third-generation Army officer, said Monday.
Recapping the events of the day, officials said the male population of the village had been lined up for identification. At that time the two men approached an Army officer from the Rashtriya Rifles. A girl, they said, was serious at their home which fell in the CASO area.
No terrorists were found that day. 1-RR Commanding Officer Col Kapil Mohan Sehgal abandoned the search. He wasted no time to instruct his troops to put the operation on hold and asked Sharma to first attend to the girl.
Seghal was not disappointed. “We could save an innocent life. Fighting terrorism may be topping the agenda for the Army in Kashmir but saving an innocent life is still topmost priority,” he said. “Operations can wait, saving lives of innocent cannot,” he added.
Sharma, who is from Patiala, said medical officers often double up as emergency response teams for villages. “Being the next-door doctor for the local villagers is a common thing now. Maybe they trust the Army so much,” Sharma informed.
