Rehan Qayoom Mir
Srinagar, Aug 05: For 16-year-old Soliha Javed from Bijbehara, August 05, 2025, will be etched in her memory not just as a date, but as the day justice finally knocked at her door after 12 long years of silence, pain and perseverance.
“I was in UKG when my father was killed in a terror attack,” Soliha said, her voice steady but eyes welling with emotion.
“Now, I am in Class 10 and this is the first time I have felt that someone heard our cries,” she said while speaking to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO).
Soliha said her father was killed in a terrorist attack more than a decade ago. Since then, her mother, a single parent, bore the burden of raising her daughter while knocking on every door for justice.
“My mother would hold my hand with one and the documents in the other,” she said. The girl spoke of fighting every battle—legal, emotional and financial on her own. “Today, I saw relief on her face for the first time,” she added.
At the official event in Srinagar, where Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha handed over appointment letters to families of terror victims, Soliha said she felt overwhelmed with gratitude.
“This appointment letter is not just a paper; it is a reward for my mother’s struggle and a recognition of my father’s sacrifice,” she said.
Soliha said she wants to focus on her studies now. “My father’s dream was for me to become something in life. With this support, I can think of a future. I feel light, as if a heavy weight has been lifted from our shoulders,” she added.
Moreover, Soliha expressed deep gratitude to the LG Manoj Sinha administration: “We are very happy and thankful to LG Sahab. He didn’t just announce something, but he gave us justice but something we have waited for all these years.”
Notably, LG Sinha said the long wait for justice and for healing to begin is over for the terror victim families. “We will do everything possible for the rehabilitation of terror victims. It is my promise to the NoKs of terror victim families that perpetrators of heinous crimes will receive exemplary punishment. We will also ensure the harshest possible punishment to terror sympathisers,” he said—(KNO)
