Floating bodies to be collected by the police in Indian Kashmir
The police on the Indian side of Kashmir have started to collect floating bodies as the anger over the mismanagement of the flood aftermath rises.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir, which has been a source of major dispute between India and Pakistan for almost 25 years, was hit by a flood in recent days. It is the worst flooding in the region for the last 50 years.
More than 450 people died in total. Big areas of farmlands flooded, houses were swept away and basic infrastructure was damaged both on sides of the contested region.
The main city in the Indian side of Kashmir, Srinagar, a city with a population of one million, was hit hard especially. The death toll in the city is above 220 now and authorities say that there are reports of trapped bodies under the debris, Reuters reported. There were also reports of floating bodies of women and children in Srinagar according to witnesses flying over the region cited by Reuters. Authorities said they were doing their best to collect the bodies as soon as possible. Bodies of the victims possess a serious health risk to the public, especially in a flood situation. On both sides of the region, authorities appeared to be caught by surprise. "I do not know how and from where the floods came from. It came so suddenly that even our experts were caught unaware," said the Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He was visiting Haveli, an area on the Pakistani side of Kashmir, which was affected by the flood severely. In Srinagar, the majority of the population is Muslim. The local residents who are already discontented with the government, became even more infuriated by the government's inability to cope with the situation, according to Reuters. A journalist, Basharat Peer, called the response to the disaster "woeful" and stated that it was is a clear case of mismanagement. Peer is a journalist and also the author of a book on the Kashmir conflict, Reuters reported.
