Curfew in Kashmir – A Silent Scream

Srinagar – August 2019

The streets were empty, but the silence wasn’t peaceful. It was heavy. Suffocating. As if the mountains themselves were holding their breath.

Inside a small brick house with wooden windows and fading curtains, Inaya, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, sat by the window, sketching the Dal Lake from memory. She hadn’t seen it in weeks. She hadn't stepped outside in

43 days.

There was no school. No mobile signal. No internet. Just whispers behind locked doors. And the sound of boots in the distance.

The curfew had turned life into a prison — and every window into a cage.

"Mama, can I go out just for five minutes?"

Her voice was soft, tired of asking.

Her mother, Rubina, shook her head quickly. “Not now, jaan. They’re patrolling again.”

Inaya sighed, hugging her sketchbook. “It doesn’t even feel like Kashmir anymore.”

Rubina didn’t answer. She just looked at her daughter and smiled weakly. But inside, her heart ached. The same way it had every day since the world outside had shut down.

Inaya wasn’t just missing school or her favorite ice cream cart. She was missing her brother.

Faizan, 17, had gone to buy milk the day after the curfew started. He never came back. They searched. Asked neighbors. Visited the police station — no answers, only silence. Every day, Inaya looked out the window, hoping to see his tall frame walking down the narrow alley.

But the road remained empty.

Only the army jeeps passed, with guns and blank stares.

One night,

Around 2:00 AM, Inaya heard a sound — soft, like fingers tapping the window.

She rushed to it.

It was a pigeon. A small note was tied to its leg.

Her hands trembled as she opened it:

“I’m alive. Somewhere near Baramulla. Detained. I don’t know for how long.

Tell Mama I didn’t run. They took me. I miss you, Inaya.

— Faizan”

Tears fell before she could scream.

Her mother read the note, fell to the ground, and kissed it again and again. Her father, usually quiet, punched the wall so hard it bled.

They had something now. Not hope, exactly. But not complete darkness either.

A week later.

Inaya stood by the window, eyes locked on the alley. A curfew pass had been issued to her father after 47 days. He was finally going to Baramulla with the Red Cross.

“Will you bring him back, Baba?” she asked, her voice shaking.

He nodded, though his eyes said maybe.

Inaya waited all day.

She sketched her brother’s face from memory. His eyes. His smirk. The mole on his cheek. She placed the drawing beside his old cricket bat.

The silence grew louder.

Evening fell.

The door creaked open.

Inaya ran to it—her heart pounding.

It wasn’t Faizan.

Just her father. Alone. Empty-handed.

Her mother took one look at his face and collapsed.

“No list. No records. They denied everything,” he whispered. “They said maybe he was never there.”

Inaya screamed. Loud. Angry. But the world didn’t hear.

The walls absorbed her cry.

The ceiling stayed still.

And the curfew outside continued.

The next morning.

Inaya wrote her brother’s name on every wall in the alley with chalk:

"Faizan. Age 17. Detained. Not forgotten."

The neighbors watched from behind curtains.

No one stopped her.

No one dared help either.

She pasted his sketch under each name.

It was her protest. Her scream in the silence.

That week, the army painted over the walls.

But Inaya did it again.

And again.

And again.

They couldn’t erase her grief.

Today.

The curfew in Kashmir lifts occasionally. But the fear never does.

Children still play in whispers. Mothers still cook with one eye on the door. And sisters like Inaya still sketch the faces of those who went missing.

Some screams are never heard.

Some stories never reach the news.

But somewhere in Srinagar, a teenage girl keeps sketching.

Keeps waiting.

Keeps hoping.

And in her silence — the loudest scream still echoes.

The End.