No place to call home for Pandit family hit by floods

A Kashmiri Pandit family braved all odds to stay back when militancy engulfed the Valley in 1990 but the devastating flood last month has forced to live them separately after losing everything including the roof over their heads.
"I am putting up with a friend in Shalimar, my son and wife is at Aloochi Bagh with her friend's family while I was forced to shift to my parents place in Delhi following the floods. We want to live together again but we have no roof over our head," Arun Kumar Gaind told PTI.
The Gainds, who chose not to migrate when militancy erupted in the Valley in 1990, own an electronic goods shop in commercial hub of Lal Chowk and Arun works as a technician in the state's Power Development Department (PDD).

They lost everything in the deluge as their rented house in Jawahar Nagar collapsed due to ravaging flood while the goods in the shop were destroyed in Lal Chowk.
A well-to-do family, before the natural calamity struck on September 7, Arun is now running from pillar to post to get some help from the Government so that he can reunite his family.
"We had a close shave with death in the deluge as the three-storied rented accommodation collapsed minutes after we moved out of it to a neighbour's concrete house," he said.

"I approached my department and the Estates Department as well for some accommodation but my case has been rejected on the basis that they don't have enough room for Civil Secretariat employees," the 37-year-old government employee said.

Jawahar Nagar was one of the worst-hit localities in Srinagar and remained submerged for nearly a month, forcing hundreds of families to leave for safer places.
Many residents, whose houses have escaped damages, have started returning and are busy clearing the muck but Gainds at the moment have nowhere to go.