J&K blast left her with 120 splinters in her leg

On July 28 2012 a blast occurred inside a bus carrying tourists in Anantnag Jammu amp Kashmir It left four dead and four others fatally wounded The state police assertively put it down to a cooking gas cylinder exploding onboard The survivors protested that there had been no cylinder on the bus But the cops had their minds made up Later forensic reports disproved the cylinder blast theory and stated that a terrorist attack had caused the explosion just as the passengers had suspected all along A grenade had been lobbed at the bus the report stated Souvenir for life Five months after the blast Geeta Jethva will be able to walk soon with the help of a walker doctors say Below An Xray shows the shards that penetrated the muscles of the 67yearoldrsquos left leg too tiny and deeply lodged to be removed safely PicsNimesh Dave The blast upturned the lives of tourists aboard that bus mdash those that survived mdash and the lives of the bereft all of whom are awaiting relief With the facts out they still havenrsquot received compensation awarded to terror assault victims A few are just waiting for the JampK government to issue correct death certificates so they can carry on with their lives Left picking shards Geeta alias Pratimaben Jethva 67 a widow staying by herself in her small room at Rana Cottage Malad E was one of the bus passengers The four killed in the blast were her relatives So were the other four injured who were later airlifted to Mumbai The deceased Left to right Nirmala Rathod 74 resident of Vile Parle Nisha Jethwa 61 a UK national of Indian origin Indira Parmar 65 UK national and Bharati Purohit 73 a Netherlands national of Indian origin Geeta has since been bedridden She underwent four surgeries and still has plasters on her leg The muscles in her left leg are speckled with 120odd splinters ndash shrapnel from the blast Doctors say they are too tiny and have penetrated too deep within to be safely extracted Dr Ketan Panchamiya the orthopaedic surgeon treating Geeta said ldquoThe left leg bone was shattered into four to five pieces Her right foot was badly injured when she was brought to us We have done bone grafting and skin grafting and have performed orthopaedic as well as plastic surgical procedures on her over the last five months She has responded well to the surgeries and will be able to walk with the help of a walkerrdquo She added ldquoWe removed around 30 of the over 120 splinters from her leg they were close to the fracture She will have to live with the remaining Removing them is not only risky but also difficultrdquo Resigned The incident still haunts Geeta ldquoLife has never been so rude to me before I havenrsquot slept properly in five months I canrsquot get up from my bed Had it not been for my relatives and neighbours providing me both financial and moral support I wouldnrsquot have been aliverdquo Geeta told MiD DAY her voice thick with emotion ldquoEven after my husband died 11 years ago I did odd jobs to run the house and never took any money from outsiders Now I depend on helping handsrdquo Recalling the events in July she said ldquoAll eight of us related bus passengers had originally decided to visit Amarnath but since only a few of us got the permission and we had to be together we planned to visit Kashmir instead We left the hotel room after the tempo traveller JK02AP0676 arrived sometime after the noonrdquo ldquoI was sitting in front of the door and we all were chatting Soon after paying the toll at Brijbehra we saw a young slim boy come close to the vehicle and throw something at us that came in through the window I thought it was a stone and informed the driver who stepped out to check what it was Minutes later the blast happenedrdquo she recalled ldquoBharati Purohit Nisha Jhetva and Nirmala Rathod my biggest support in life were lying motionless inside the bus I wanted to step outside the vehicle to rush them to the hospital but I was unable to move my leg Then I noticed that both my legs were bleeding The locals rushed us to the hospitalrdquo she added Truth prevails ldquoAt the hospital the local police and security personnel kept on insisting that the blast happened because we had an LPG cylinder onboardrdquo Geeta said ldquoThey told us we were making tea inside the tempo traveller Utterly wrong None of us even drink tea But the cops had decided that it was our negligence Even the doctors at SheriKashmir Institute of Medical Sciences SKIMS hospital in Srinagar said the injured had sustained multiple splinter wounds indicating a grenade blast ldquoWe had no reason to lie We lost four of our loved ones in the blast At last the truth has come out It was a terrorist attackrdquo Geeta said According to the deputy inspector general of police Kashmir south Vijay Kumar ldquoWe suspected an LPG blast case But in October we received the Forensic Science Laboratory JampK report which after examining samples collected from the scene of the blast and the tempo confirmed that it was a grenade blastrdquo No compensation The JampK government did not pay any compensation to the injured or next of kin of those killed in the attack citing at that time that it was an LPG blast They only provided free medical aid The air transport and subsequent medical expenses were borne by the victims Speaking to MiD DAY Additional Director General of Police JampK Rajendra Kumar said ldquoAs per the rules we pay an ex gratia amount of Rs 1 lakh to the injured in a terrorist attack A job to victimsrsquo next of kin is only for JampK residents Tourists are not entitled to it The Mumbai victims mdash since it has now been established that it was a terror attack mdash should write to the JampK government seeking compensationrdquo Police encounter On December 28 2012 two suspected LeT militants allegedly involved in the grenade attack on the tempo traveller were killed in a joint operation of the JampK police the Rashtriya Rifles and the Central reserve Police Force CRPF DIG Vijay Kumar said ldquoThe militants were identified as Imtiyaz Ahmed Teli alias Fahadullah Kashmiri and Mohammad Aamir Bhat alias Khalid alias Khursheed They were involved in the grenade attack which killed four women and injured four othersrdquo Asked how he had ascertained that those killed in the encounter had carried out the grenade attack Kumar said briefly ldquoWe had specific informationrdquo Familes await death certificate Bharat Jethva whose motherinlaw Nirmala Rathod was killed in the blast is facing another kind of difficulty He is awaiting a valid death certificate from JampK The certificate issued by SKIMS hospital in Srinagar has errors Rathodrsquos age is written as 60 instead of 74 years and her husbandrsquos name is incorrect The glitches are impeding the relatives from getting insurance and operating her bank accounts ldquoWe have been asked by the institutions to get a proper death certificate from JampK Otherwise they wonrsquot accept our petition seeking benefits after deathrdquo Jhetva said Relatives of Nisha Jethwa a UK national killed in the blast are facing a similar problem The certificate made out on a plain sheet of paper with errors of spelling in the name of the deceased is not acceptable in the UK The kin are concerned that insurance funds wonrsquot be released without a proper certificate The injured Neeta Jethwa 55 resident of Ghatkopar W Geeta alias Prathima Jethwa 66 resident of Malad Jayshree Desai 62 resident of Matunga Jasuben Thakkar 76 resident of Vile Parleu00a0