Explosive welcome to Kashmir

It took me a few moments to realize that the sound which disrupted our peaceful and tranquil Shikara ride on the Dal Lake was a loud blast. We turned around and saw a thick cloud rising in the air somewhere beyond the west shore of the lake, just over a mile away from us. The smoke flew up quickly and dispersed into the late evening air in the short time in which I managed to release the shutter of my camera only several times. The two locals in our company, boatman and a guide, reacted to it like it was a only a minor disturbance, like when you here somebody shouting and you turn to see what is happening or when you hear screeching of the car brakes on the busy intersection and it catches your attention, but only for a moment. Nothing too unusual in this Eden.

As I’m writing this few hours later, on a beautiful and fresh Kashmir night, sitting on the back of a wooden houseboat straight from the colonial days, I am still not sure if the blast really was another bomb attack by militants or was it (improbable) random explosion in the heart of the old city. Last attack in the area was only two weeks ago. Kashmir has been a disputed region between Pakistan and India since The Partition in 1947 and thousands of people have died since on both sides of the conflict.

The relations between two groups were getting tenser recently and the increase in security was apparent from the moment we arrived at the Srinagar International Airport. The heavily armed soldiers were visible from the moment we walked through the aircraft door. Even though it was a domestic flight there were several additional forms to fill out and security checks on the way out of the airport but none of them too efficient since in all the frenzy with several flights arriving at the same time on this quite small airport I managed walk right out without anybody checking my forms. I did eventually realized my mistake and went back into the airport building to find a person who was supposed to check who is coming into the province.

On the road from the airport to the lake we witnessed the significance that Indian government puts on this conflict and the acclimatization of local people to the military presence in their hometown. The number of military vehicles was equal to that of civilian cars, mopeds and taxis and at least through the window of our cab the Hindu soldiers and the Muslim citizens seemed to have found a way to coexist together. Little did any of us know that only moments after the afternoon call to prayer in the mosques an ugly plot will culminate in a detonation we observed.



We continued our tour of the Dal lake, it’s beautiful patches of Water Lilies, floating gardens and Lotus flowers. The life in Srinagar continues as normal and relishing in the beauty of its surroundings cannot be disrupted by a bomb blast.

Update:
Still didn’t have a chance to post this but in the meantime we found out that the blast was a car bomb – first one in two years – aimed at the police bus coming out of the jail building. It managed to kill four people and injure more than a dozen.
I wonder how do Pakistani’s think (they figured it was a Pakistani national who was behind it) that this would help their cause – do they really think that India will pull 600,000 troops they keep in the region because of an act like this?