4-member Anantnag village family with octogenarian head votes for water connection

Anantnag, May 25:   Karim Pehlu and his wife Janti Begum, both octogenarians, walked the rugged downhill terrain of their Khelan Gojran hamlet of south Kashmir to cast their vote early morning.

Despite their deteriorating health, the octogenarian couple not only ensured that they were among the first to vote but also made sure that their other two family members voted.

The four-member family said that they were voting to get basic facilities in this far-flung village of south Kashmir.

Karim Pehlu, the family head, said that despite decades of voting practice, they were yet to receive basic facilities like a water connection.

“We are a handful of families in the area who are yet to experience what it is like having a running water connection accessible at home. We have to take a kilometre-long walk to fetch water in containers at a time when even the remotest places on earth have proper water supply,” Karim said.

The villagers surrounding Karim confirmed the issue, saying that no one was paying attention to them. “The water connection was far away. So a few villagers got some plastic pipe on their own to get it nearer, but still, it is a kilometre away,” said another villager.

Karim said that his entire family had voted so that they would get a candidate who would speak for them.

They said that in addition to the water issue, the family received electricity bills despite having no power connection.

“We got the power connection only in December 2023, and before that, we surprisingly received electricity bill amounting to thousands of rupees even when we had no access to electricity. We are not voting for some freebies or something extra luxurious. We only want these basic facilities,” Karim said. “I ensured that my son, Younis Ahmad, and daughter-in-law, Zareena Begum, also voted to ensure that they got a representative.”

The villagers in this area said that the healthcare in their village was in shambles.

They said that with over 500 households, let alone a hospital, they did not have a dispensary or primary health centre.

“Many of the families here don’t have a power connection and there are no electric poles installed to ensure a permanent fixed power supply. When we fall sick, we have to travel long distances to reach the hospital. But we can’t sit like this. We have to speak and we are using our vote as our voice so that we get a candidate who addresses these issues,” said Bashir Ahmad, another local.

Among the multiple polling stations going to polls in the area, this was the one with the longest queues.

The voters said that they failed to hold the higher officials accountable amid a lack of representation.

They said that through their right to vote, they wanted to address the issue head-on, and that was why even the most elderly people were in queues to vote.