October 08, 2006	Sunday	Ramazan 14, 1427

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MUZAFFARABAD, Oct 7: As Azad Jammu and Kashmir observes the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake, a valiant resident of its ruined capital prepares for a journey to Colombo later this month to receive from a Sri Lankan non-governmental organisation a medal for saving several lives during the region’s worst-ever natural disaster.

But when Gul Javid, the nominee for the Gold Medal for Asia by the Foundation of Civilian Bravery (FCB), was bringing out trapped persons one after the other from beneath heaps of earth and concrete on Oct 8, he did not have the slightest idea that his selfless efforts would some day be acknowledged and rewarded by an organisation based in an island nation, hundreds of miles away.

“When I was retrieving people from the debris till the onset of darkness on that fateful day, I had nothing in my mind but that I should help those who are in distress,” says the 44-year-old.

A civil engineer by profession, Javid lived in Madina Market — Muzaffarabad’s commercial hub and one of its hardest hit areas — under a joint family system. His family suffered three casualties — his two brothers died in their house and a minor niece in a nearby school. But regardless of personal trauma, he responded to the heart-rending calls for help in his neighbourhood at the risk of his own life.

First people he rescued were two sisters trapped in a fallen structure, half of which was still standing but leaning dangerously, and their fear-stricken parents paid their gratitude. Then he rushed to a nearby private school in search of his niece who had expired by then, but instead of returning home he saved a boy, the lower half of whose body was buried in the debris.

The most difficult rescue work that Javid did was in a shopping mall in the ground floor of a collapsed two-storey building.

The ground floor had been reduced to rubble and a woman trapped in a shoe shop was screaming for help. “As I reached there I did not find anyone who could help me take her out as it was too dangerous going near the place, recalls Arshad Bazmi, husband of the trapped woman.

By then, a few brave ones were in the vicinity where many buildings had come to the ground and the standing ones were dangerously leaning towards the narrow street, strewn with rubble, wires and bodies, he said. “However, Mr Javid came forward and in a daredevil move put his head and then half of his body inside from a small cavity, cut some iron rods to widen the space which helped my wife crawl out at about 8 pm.”

Javid recalls that with aftershocks continuously shaking the area, he thought at one point that the whole building would collapse and kill him. “And that time who knew that someone sitting as far away as Colombo will invite me to receive a medal for these acts which I did not do for any worldly gains,” he says.