Srinagar: For Amir Bhat, who rushed from Switzerland to help his family in flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, the past week has been a gut-wrenching, roller-coaster ride.
Speaking to NDTV at the Srinagar airport on Friday, Mr Bhat shared his utter panic soon after hearing that his parents were missing in the floods. As he nervously watched news of the devastation, he knew that the one thing he needed to rescue his parents in Naik Bagh, a densely populated area in in the city, was a boat.
“I knew these people who work as lifeguards in Lake Geneve and I asked them if I could borrow their boat,” Mr Bhat told NDTV, adding, “They refused saying that they needed it for their work and couldn’t spare it.”
But that didn’t stop him from trying harder. “I showed them all the coverage, the images that were emerging out of the valley and when they saw how badly hit Srinagar was, they gifted it to us,” said Mr Bhat who unexpectedly found help at several points through his journey.
“We were stopped at customs and other authorities and they all waived any costs when they heard what it was for,” he said. The next problem now was assembling the boat after arriving in Srinagar.
“It was a professional boat and so, however much we tried, we couldn’t get it going,” he said. Enter personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) who took out time from the rescue operations and made the boat ready-for-use.
But Mr Bhat decided to check at a relative’s house first before setting out on his search mission, and to his immense relief, found his parents there – rescued by the Army and safe.
“I really want to thank the Army for the amazing job that they are doing and the fact that my parents are safe only because of them,” he said.
Mr Bhat has left the boat at the local branch of the J&K Bank “so that anyone can use it if they need to”.
Amir Bhat and his family will now stay in Delhi and they look forward to rebuilding their home back in the Valley.