New Delhi:
As bleeding tourists were evacuated from the Baisaran meadow in Pahalgam, locals claim a hospital in the vicinity could have saved lives.
After attackers went on a shooting spree on Tuesday, killing 26, those injured were first rushed to a small dispensary that was not equipped to treat gunshot wounds as a nearest hospital was 40 kilometres away. Proper treatment in a hospital could have saved at last 7-8 lives, locals told NDTV.
The dispensary, which usually has around one to two people on duty was overwhelmed as the injured were brought in on taxis, their wounds wrapped in towels and bedsheets. After initial treatment, the injured were sent to the nearest hospital in Anantnag, an hour’s drive away. “In that much time, there will be a lot of blood loss and the person will die on the spot,” a local said.
If there was a proper hospital and a blood bank, another local said, the people of Pahalgam would have turned up in large numbers to donate blood and save lives of the victims.
Just a few feet away from the dispensary is an under-construction hospital, whose opening the locals have been waiting for since over 10 years. “We want the Lieutenant Governor to hear our voices. We want the hospital completed in the next 15-20 days,” a Pahalgam resident said.
Locals have awaited the completion of an under-construction hospital in Pahalgam since 10 years.
The houses of two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists allegedly involved in the Pahalgam attack were destroyed in Jammu and Kashmir. Officials said security forces were conducting searches inside the houses of two LeT terrorists Adil Hussain Thokar and Asif Sheikh when the explosives already kept inside the houses went off.
Thokar, a resident of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, is one of the key accused in Tuesday’s Pahalgam massacre, while Sheikh, resident of Tral in Pulwama district, is suspected to be involved in the conspiracy of the attack.