Says LG Manoj Sinha gave his family ‘dignity, hope & reason to live again’
Srinagar, Dec 13: For 25 years, he carried a silence too heavy for words. On Saturday afternoon, standing inside the Lok Bhavan Auditorium in Srinagar, 26-year-old Syed Anwar from Gurez finally spoke, his voice trembling, his eyes moist, and his heart full of memories he never got to make.
“My father was killed in 2002 in Chattora, Bargaun. I was only one and a half years old then,” Anwar said, in a soft, halting voice, while speaking with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO). “I didn’t even know what was happening around me. I didn’t know what a father’s love felt like. I grew up hearing stories about him, how he was brave, kind and respected by everyone. But I never saw him. Not once.”
For Anwar, childhood meant watching others go to school with their fathers, while he walked with his mother, clutching her hand tightly. “When you grow up without a father, the world treats you differently,” he said. “You learn to hide your pain, to smile even when it hurts. We had no one; only my mother’s courage kept us alive.”
His family survived on a small pension, stretching every rupee, every day. “Sometimes, we didn’t even have enough for books or clothes,” Anwar recalled. “But my mother never let us give up. She used to say, ‘Your father’s blood runs in your veins, you must live with pride, not pity.’”
On Saturday, after more than two decades, Syed Anwar received an appointment letter under the special employment package for families of terror victims, a moment he called “a new beginning after years of darkness.”
“I’m thankful to LG Sahab for everything,” he said, holding the letter close to his chest. “It is not just a job. It’s respect. It’s dignity. It’s proof that my father’s sacrifice was not forgotten. This is for my mother, for every night she cried alone, for every morning she went to work just to keep us alive.”
Pausing, he added softly, “Today, I feel my father is watching from somewhere above. Maybe now, he can finally rest in peace.” (KNO)
