A peep into the prevailing scenario in Kashmir. Sign boards fitted on the fence of Radio Kashmir Srinagar.

A hoarding erected in Srinagar during the holy month of Ramadan (month of fasting for Muslims). Such religious hoardings and banners dot the landscape on particular occasions.

A Kashmiri walks past a hoarding erected in Srinagar. This particular hoarding says enough about the politics in region. With the change in government such hoardings get replaced overnight.

A hoarding endorsing a brand of sanitary ware erected close to another one having prayers in Aribic written on it. The hoarding speaks much about the religious bent in Kashmiri mind.

Saving environment should be our prime concern. Stop environmental degradation as it is going on at an alarming pace. A roadside hoarding in Srinagar cautions citizens about the hazards of environmental pollution.

And this is what happens to the most forms of art in open spaces. A tattered roadside hoarding erected some years back in Srinagar to mark the Diamond Jublee celebrations Of Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

A Kashmiri Muslim girl walks past a shop selling bazar art in Srinagar. Of late people in Kashmir generated an interest of buying art pieces to decorate their living rooms.

Roadside memorials are now used by street vendors to sell their merchandise. A poultry seller has set up a makeship stall near a memorial in Srinagar. Initially these memorials revered by people and were maintained and looked after for quite sometime. However the spirit died down soon.

A close up of a roadside memorial. Read the post below on roadside memmorials in Kashmir.

Forgotten roadside memorials in Kashmir

Peerzada Arshad Hamid
Srinagar

Small roadside martyr memorials erected in the memory of killed ones became a common sight
in Kashmir after anti-India insurgency broke out in 1989. The memorials are structures in
concrete with one or more taps fitted on them meant to provide drinking water to passers by.

The memorials also carry an epitaph having inscribed on it the name of the 'martyr(s)' in whose
memory it has been erected along with date of killing, a couplet and a holy verse.

Initially these small memorials were revered by people and were maintained and looked after as
well. But the spirit died out with the passage of time.

Among the prominent ones is the memorial in front of Islamia College in Hawal erected in
memory of people killed in police firing on funeral procession of Mirwaiz Moulana Farooq on
July 21 1991. Mirwaiz Farooq was killed on the same day by unidentified gunmen at his
residence. The memorial is among the bigger ones with the names of all the killed persons
inscribed on it.

Small memorials are however scattered all across the valley. At times they were erected by
people of the locality where the person was killed, or where he lived. In some cases the family
members of slain erected the memorial.

The memorials celebrate slain civilians as well as militants.

No sooner had the trend of erecting roadside memorials picked up, they could be found almost
in every nook and corner of the region, many of them celebrating local youth killed while fighting
Indian troops.

In just a few years roadside martyr memorials become so much part of the place that localities
looked incomplete without one.

Although killings continue in Kashmir, the spirit of constructing Martyr Memorials has taken back
seat so has the maintenance of erected ones.

The structures that were looked with much reverence during early nineties lie in ruins today. Taps
are running dry at many of these memorials and the concrete structures wearing off.
Apart from Srinagar city, many such memorials can be seen in major towns and villages of
Kashmir. In Anantnag town one such memorial is that of Farooq Ahmad Dar.

Farooq, a local crossed to other part of Kashmir to seek arms training and back home got killed
in a gun battle with Indian troops in the town. To remember Farooq after his death, his
friends constructed a memorial at the end of the lane, which now is in ruins.

"The moment I used to visit the memorial for filling water in the bottle, the scenes of Farooq's
childhood used to flashback in my mind. I used to offer Fatheh (prayers offered to deceased for
peace of soul). Now see, it has got damaged and I don't like to see it in the present position,"
Says Mohammed Khalil, a tailor master in the locality.

It is believed that initially the trend of constructing martyr memorials was initiated by militant
organisations to keep alive the spirit among the locals regarding uprising and to keep the
remember those who laid down their lives.

"At many places memorials came at the place where our brothers laid their sacred blood.
Memorials were just erected to remind the people that we are indebted towards those who
offered their lives. Now it was the collective responsibility of the people and the neighbourhood to
maintain these memorials," says a former militant leader preferring not to be named.

Prior to 1990 construction of memorials was unfamiliar in Kashmir albeit many big incidents. The
July 13, 1931 incident in which many people fall to the bullets of Dogra forces too lack any such
memorial.

A roadside martyr memorial erected in the memory of killed militant. Roadside memmorials became a common sight in Kashmir after anti-India insurgency broke out in 1989. The memorials are structures in concrete with one or more taps fitted meant to provide drinking water to passers by.
The memorials also carry an epitaph having inscribed on it the name of the 'martyr(s)' in whose memory it has been erected along with date of killing and a couplet of holy verse.

A view of a bunker and barricade in the down town area of Srinagar city in Jammia Mosque area. The barricades and bunkers are proving to be hurdles in the vehicular movement on city's roads.