Kashmir Family Gets Compensation 39 Years After Losing Kin In Srinagar Bomb Blast

Srinagar: Nearly 40 years after a young Kashmiri mechanic was killed in a bomb blast at Srinagar's bustling exhibition ground, a local court has directed the Jammu and Kashmir government to pay his family compensation. The court also ruled that state authorities have failed in their duty to safeguard citizens in public spaces.

In her 20-page judgement, the 2nd Additional District Judge of Srinagar, Swati Gupta, decreed that the family of 22-year-old Avis Ahmed Shah, who died of grievous injuries on October 14, 1985, a day after a powerful blast ripped through the Radha Theatre section of the exhibition, be paid Rs 3.24 lakh in compensation with eight per cent annual interest from the date the suit was filed in 1986 until payment is made.

“If an agency or department of the government has been enjoined the task of maintaining law and order and also security at a particular place where the public is expected to arrive in numbers and an entry fee to such a public place is also being charged, then such an agency or department belonging to the government cannot shirk away from its liability and responsibility to perform the enjoined or assigned task to completion and that too with satisfaction,” Judge Gupta wrote in her 41-point verdict announced on August 20 (Wednesday).

The judgment, delivered ex parte after years of erratic government representation, is one of the longest-running civil suits in the Srinagar courts, with its origins in a plaint filed in May 1986 by Shah's father, Mohammad Yousuf Shah. The elder Shah sought Rs 3.84 lakh in damages, arguing that his son's death was the result of negligence by state agencies responsible for regulating entry and ensuring safety at the government-run exhibition.

Yousuf Shah pursued the case for more than a decade before dying in 1998. His widow, Khatija, and children – Showkat, Naqeeb, Mushtaq, Tahmeena and Zahida – were substituted as plaintiffs. The family alleged that Avis, who worked as a mechanic earning Rs 700–800 a month, was the breadwinner supporting his mother and siblings. His sudden death, they said, left them destitute.

The government opposed the claim, arguing the blast was a terrorist act carried out by some terror groups of an “underground” outfit styling itself as “Holy War Fighters” and thus beyond state control. Officials maintained that “all possible steps” had been taken to secure the venue and insisted there was no negligence on their part.

But Judge Gupta rejected that defence. “Such reasoning on the part of the defendants does not find consensus with this Court for the simple reason ...the law and order enforcement machinery makes a statement of such nature; it projects a picture of helplessness and ineffectiveness, having the overall effect of erosion of the confidence of the general public that they are being effectively safeguarded against attacks of violence,” she wrote.

Court records include testimonies of neighbours and relatives who described the night of the blast. Farooq Ahmad Reshi, one of the witnesses, told the court he was inside the exhibition grounds when the explosion occurred around 8:45 pm on October 13, 1985. He recalled that Shah was critically wounded and rushed to Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Soura, where he died the next morning.

“The blast took place because of the negligence of the government and the police... If the police had taken due responsibility, the bomb blast would not have taken place,” Reshi testified in 1997.

Another witness, Fayaz Ahmad Reshi, who said he accompanied Avis to the theatre that evening, recalled how strict frisking was conducted at the gates. Yet, a crude explosive still made its way inside. “It is correct that if there had been proper checking and no blast had taken place, the death could not have taken place,” he conceded in cross-examination in 1999.

Avis's brother, Naqeeb Ahmad Shah, told the court his younger sibling had been a trained mechanic since his teenage years, earning both wages and tips. “Had the deceased been alive, he would have been earning Rs. 15,000 per month,” Naqeeb testified in 2008.

The ruling turned not on the origin of the bomb, which police investigations attributed to terrorists, but on the duty of the state to ensure “foolproof security” at public gatherings it organised and profited from.

“The exhibition ground is a public place where the general public is expected to visit under an unspoken assurance of safety, and the state authorities, including the police administration and the departments involved in the organisation of the event, are under an obligation to take reasonable and effective measures to ensure security of the highest grade at such public gatherings,” Judge Gupta held.

Invoking Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life, she noted:

“When the life of a citizen is lost in circumstances involving violence caused by terrorism or as a result of failure of the state machinery to provide adequate protection in a public place, the deprivation of life cannot be brushed aside and treated as a mere tragedy.”

The judgment also cited the Supreme Court's ruling in Lata Wadhwa vs State of Bihar (2001), which emphasised the duty of the state and institutions to compensate victims of public tragedies.

The family had initially sought Rs 3.84 lakh in damages, based on Avis's expected lifespan and monthly earnings. The court, after considering his age, income, and contribution to the household, applied the legal “multiplier method” to calculate loss of dependency.

The court arrived at a figure of Rs 3.24 lakh, slightly lower than the claim, but ordered interest at eight per cent annually from 1986, a significant addition given the nearly four-decade delay. Judge Gupta further directed that if the government failed to pay within two months, an additional four per cent interest would accrue.

“Compensation, therefore, in such circumstances is not merely an act of restitution or a measure of providing damages but has to be given as a remedy intended to compensate the bereaved family, enabling it to withstand the financial loss caused by the death of a young earning member of the family,” the court said.

Judge Gupta acknowledged the “inordinate delay in the grant of compensation to the plaintiffs at the time of their grief.”

“No amount of monetary help can ever truly compensate for the loss of a beloved one,” the court acknowledged.

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