He was our only hope, says shattered family

Suhail A Shah

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Anantnag, October 18

The family of Zahid Bhat, who lost his battle for life this morning, said he was their only hope to get out of poverty and misery.

“We are a family of labourers. I have been a labourer all my life and so are three other sons of mine,” said a grief-stricken Ghulam Rasool Bhat, Zahid’s aged father.

He said his youngest son was the only one in the family who was good at studies and never wanted to give up studies. “We encouraged him with whatever little means we had. We never knew that his end would be so near,” he said.

Zahid’s family said he was a bright class X student. His brother Muhammad Ashraf said the family had always thought that he would study well and take the family out of poverty.

“I used to work as cleaner of the truck. Zahid insisted that he would go this time around. Had I known that he would be killed, I would have never allowed him to go,” he said.

The family waited for the body of their beloved Zahid to be flown from New Delhi with Zahid’s mother Zaina Begum wailing amid a group of women.

“How can they be so cruel? How can they kill my son for a cow?” she kept asking the women surrounding her. Without an answer, all they could do was mourn with her.