JK Polls: People on the edge

9

This picture (below) on its own, would perhaps confuse you. But the blur and the speed have a story. This is nine-year-old Samira Begum running for cover It was shot in Drahall area of Rajouri district - a hilly region, on the Indo Pak border, which has seen militancy at its peak. Elections in Jammu and Kashmir had brought us here. The moment I took off my camera to click Samira, standing on the edge of the road, she sprinted without notice. Clutching to her purple cloth bag, she ran for her life. Little Samira mistook my camera for a revolver. Rounds of laughter later, Samira was convinced that we were not out to literally shoot her. She screened her photographs and finally smiled. The psyche of fear runs deep here, I remembered. Last year, in Kulali village....