Violence drowns wedding bells in the Valley
SRINAGAR: A flurry of nervous activities that generally accompany a wedding came abruptly to an anxious halt in bride Ayaat’s home in Srinagar, a consequence of unrelenting unrest after the killing of a young militant commander.
The wedding ceremony was fixed on July 20. Ayaat will marry a businessman from Kulgam district in southern Kashmir, which had recorded the most number of clashes after security forces shot dead Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on Friday.
Ayaat’s family has not been able to contact the groom or his relatives as mobile phone service is suspended in southern Kashmir.
Her wedding stands postponed now. “It’s not possible … everything stands disrupted,” a family member said on Tuesday, underlining the tense situation in the curfew-bound Kashmir Valley.
Hundreds of post-Eid weddings, feasts and other invitations have been either postponed or cancelled.
The wedding season in Kashmir is generally restricted to the May to October summer months. In the past two days, most Kashmiri newspapers were flush with classified advertisements, announcing the cancellation of wedding invitations or informing that the ceremony will be a “simple” affair.
“Due to prevailing turmoil, the invitation of marriage ceremony of grandson of SA Rehman scheduled on 14th and 15th of July, 2016, stands cancelled. However, marriage will be solemnised in a simple manner …. inshallah,” reads one of the 26 such announcements in Kashmir’s leading English daily, Greater Kashmir, on Tuesday.
The Rehmans cancelled only the feast but others have postponed the wedding. “My niece’s wedding was planned for July 15-16. But now, considering the security situation, it has been postponed,” Mushtaq Ahmad, the uncle of a bride, said.