IOK poet loses home and life’s work of 20 books

Srinagar, March 17, 2018 (PPI-OT): In occupied Kashmir, a poet Ghulam Muhammad Butt lost his home and life’s work of 20 books as the Indian forces destroyed his house with mortal shelling during a violent crackdown operation in Balhama-Khonmoh area of Srinagar on Thursday night. Bodies of two youth, Rasiq Nabi Butt and Shabbir Ahmad Dar, were recovered from the debris of the destroyed house.

Now all that is left of the two-storey house built by Ghulam Muhammad Butt’s father in 1967 are a few standing walls pockmarked with bullet holes and soot, piles of broken bricks and concrete. Glancing around with an expression of deep hurt and agony, Ghulam Muhammad Butt sobs not for the home he lost but for the poetry he had written over the course of the last three decades and was consumed by the mortar shells.

“Houses can be rebuilt. I have lost my life’s treasure, my poetry of past 30 years,” he said. “With the first light of the day, I was not bothered about the damage to my house, but tried hard to find whether any of my poetic contribution could be saved. But what I found was that all my life’s hard work had turned into ashes,” he added.

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