Abid Bashir
Srinagar, Oct 11: The wheel of fate had catapulted the 15-year-old Babloo from West Bengal to Kashmir but little did he know that instead of blossoming into a prosperous youth he would fall to CRPF bullets at the prime of his teenage.
Babloo originally hailed from West Bengal. He was five when his father passed away.
He and his mother Noori found a ray of hope in Muhammad Yousuf Sheikh, 40, a resident of Sheikh Colony, Nowhatta.
Sheikh, a daily-wage sweeper in Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) had lost his wife leaving behind two children Javaid now 14 and Tariq, 11.

He had decided to marry a Bengali woman who would take care of his two sons.
 “I went to West Bengal in search of a bride. One of my friends took me to Noori’s residence. A deal was struck and I got married to Noori. She already had a son (Babloo) from her first husband. I asked Noori to bring Babloo along. We were living happily. Babloo was contributing 90 per cent of money he earned to the family,” said Sheikh.
Living in a dingy two-room house having few utensils and inadequate matting, Sheikh said last year he developed a minor crack in his backbone due to excessive work.
“Babloo was interested in tailoring since he was eight. He worked at a tailoring shop at Nowhatta. Instead of me, my wife used to go on duty now and we somehow managed a good living with Babloo’s support,” he said. “Unfortunately, CRPF left my dreams shattered by killing Babloo.”
On Friday Babloo fell to a bullets fired by CRPF men right in front of the shop where he worked as a tailor.
Beating her chest amid screams, Babloo’s mother, Noori tried to reach the spot where his son fell to the CRPF bullets.
“He is somewhere here. He had just purchased rice and told me he will be back in five minutes. He is hiding somewhere near his shop,” said Noori.
Ishfaq Ahmad, Babloo’s friend and an eyewitness to his killing told Rising Kashmir that they had just offered Friday prayers and were sitting in Bahuddin Sahib’s Park near Police Station Nowhatta.
 “Youth were pelting stones at CRPF. We were sitting in the park. As the protests took a violent turn we tried to head towards our home but CRPF men fired indiscriminately. One of the bullets hit Babloo right on his forehead. I called a few youth who helped me remove Babloo in an auto rickshaw to take him to SKIMS hospital,” said Ahmad.
Babloo’s next door neighbor Abdur Rashid Shiekh said Babloo was operated at the SKIMS and doctors succeeded in removing bullets from his head that had completely damaged his brain.
“After the operation he lived for 15 minutes. Police did not handover his body to us and took it to Police Station Soura,” Sheikh said.
Commenting on Babloo’s death, CRPF spokesman Prabhakar Tripathi admitted that CRPF troopers fired at Nowhatta and Gojwara.
 “We fired scores of rubber bullets to control the situation but that did not work. When a group of youth tried to ransack our bunker at Gojwara we opened fire. Our men might have opened fire at Nowhatta too which caused Babloo’s death. We regret this incident,” Tripathi said.