Bus driver couldn’t save 7, but drove 49 other pilgrims to safety

Valsad (Gujarat), July 11 : The driver of the bus carrying 56 Amarnath pilgrims couldn’t save seven lives, but he courageously managed to move the remaining 49 persons to a safer place. Soon after the attack, the driver, Saleem Sheikh, called up his cousin Javed Mirza in Gujarat’s Valsad and narrated to him how the terror strike took place. Javed said he was proud of Saleem, who put up a brave front and drove the 49 passengers to safety despite the militants firing at the bus indiscriminately from three sides. Javed said Saleem told him that when the militants attacked, all he was looking for was a safer spot to ferry the pilgrims.
Saleem called up Javed around 9.30 pm and informed him about the incident.
While speaking to media, Saleem said: “God gave me the strength, he gave me the strength to save lives. All of a sudden they (terrorists) started firing on us, but I kept on driving and did not stop.”
Seven Amarnath pilgrims, six of them women, were killed and 20 injured in a suspected militant attack in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Monday evening. While the police claim the pilgrims died when militants attacked security personnel, sources said the yatra bus was attacked near Batengoo along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, 40 km from Srinagar.