Ex-ultra’s daughter fights odds to pursue her dream
Rifat Mohidin
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, August 23
Alina Mir, who returned to Kashmir, her homeland, last year from Pakistan under the government’s rehabilitation policy for former militants’ families, is pursuing her dream of becoming a journalist.
Alina took admission in a three-year undergraduate course in Mass Communication and Multimedia Production at a college in Srinagar this session but the journey has not been easy for her so far. From the bustling city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan to a village in the frontier Kupwara district’s Chowkibal area, life has thrown up many challenges for this 20-year-old.
“After my father, I was the one who wanted to come to Kashmir. I was excited and had planned to pursue journalism here. But things became difficult on arrival in Kashmir. Despite odds, my father supported me and helped me get admission in a college here,” says Alina.
Life in Kashmir has been tough for the family, but for Alina’s father, the priority has been to give his five good education.
Alina, who was doing her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from International Islamic University, Islamabad, had to leave the course midway when she returned to Kashmir in June 2016.
“Getting admission here was not easy because families like us have to go through a lengthy process. But after we appealed to Education Minister Altaf Bukhari, he helped me in getting admission. It was my last hope,” she adds.
Alina lives in a rented accommodation in Srinagar so that she can attend college in the city while her family lives in Kupwara. The family has meagre resources and is finding it difficult to afford the education of their five children.
“We are struggling financially. Whatever my father earns, most of it is spent on me as I live in a rented accommodation in Srinagar,” she adds.
She says that families of rehabilitated families were not getting attention from the government and it had not fulfilled the promises made to them.
Most of the young men, who had crossed over to Pakistan for arms training in the 1990s, married local women and settled there. But after the government announced the rehabilitation policy in 2010 for the return of these families, many of them have come back home.
Alina’s father returned to Kashmir after 26 years. Though the siblings lost one year of their education as they came back to the Valley in the middle of 2016, Alina is hopeful of a bright future here.
“My father is hopeful that we will get good education here and will have a good future. We don’t own a house and are putting up with relatives.We are building life from a scratch,” says Alina, who hopes for the situation to turn peaceful in Kashmir so that families like theirs do not have to face any harassment or trouble.
