'Come Back, Momin': A Mother's Wait By Riverside For Her 10-Year-Old Son

Every few minutes, Shaheena rises from the riverbank and stares into the churning waters.

The sight never changes.

The river continues its relentless rush downstream, carrying with it the hopes, prayers and unanswered questions of a grieving mother.

For four days now, Momin Ashiq's mother has been sitting beside Nallah Madumati in north Kashmir's Bandipora district, waiting for her 10-year-old son to return home.

She wants to embrace him one last time.

"I just want to see him one last time," she says, her eyes fixed on the water.

Relatives and villagers try to comfort Momin's mother inside a tent erected along the riverside.
Photo Credit: NDTV, Ejaz Ul Haq Bhat

The river, however, offers no solace.

Four days ago, Momin Ashiq, son of Ashiq Hussain Ganai of Ganai Mohalla in Kaloosa, was riding his bicycle along the banks of the river with his friend, enjoying an ordinary evening that no one imagined would turn into tragedy.

He spotted a cricket ball floating near the edge of the water. Momin decided to retrieve it.

"He left home around 6.30 pm and told me he would take a stroll with his friend along the road by the riverside," Shaheena told NDTV. "He left and promised to come back. Barely 10 minutes had passed when there was a hue and cry all around. When I came out, I learnt that my son had slipped into the river. Since then, there has been no trace of him."

Momin Ashiq with his uncle during a routine visit to a nearby forest area.
Photo Credit: Special Arrangement 

According to his friend, he followed the ball for a short distance and eventually managed to reach it beneath the Kaloosa bridge.

Triumphant, he tossed the ball back toward his friend.

As he attempted to climb back onto the bank, his footing gave way. In an instant, he slipped into the stream.

The spot where Momin is believed to have slipped into the river and was swept away.
Photo Credit: NDTV, Ejaz Ul Haq Bhat

His friend screamed. Nearby, his sister had been watching him too.

Moments earlier, she had called out to him. "Come back, Momin," she urged.

Before she could run to reach him, he had already fallen into the water. What followed was chaos.

Eyewitnesses say water had been released from the hydroelectric project fed by the Kishanganga River shortly before the incident. The project diverts water from the Gurez Valley toward Bandipora's Kralpora area, adding immense force to the flow of Nallah Madumati.

Momin Ashiq with his friends at school.
Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The stream, already known for its powerful currents, suddenly became a raging channel.

The gushing water caught the boy and swept him away before anyone could react.

One moment he was there. The next, he had disappeared.

Since then, the search operation has not stopped.

Momin was the only son among five children.

"We have four daughters, and he was our only son," Shaheena says, struggling to hold back tears. "I desperately wait for him to come back so that I can have one last glimpse of him and cradle him. Somebody snatched him from me."

Teams of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), police personnel, MARCOS commandos and local volunteers have been combing the stream day and night.

Local swimmers have risked the dangerous currents.

Rescue personnel have scanned every bend, every whirlpool and every stretch of water where the boy may have been trapped.

SDRF teams and local volunteers continue their search for Momin on the fourth day of the operation.
Photo Credit: NDTV, Ejaz Ul Haq Bhat

Yet Momin remains missing.

As search teams move along the stream, one figure remains constant. His mother.

Wrapped in grief and exhaustion, she keeps vigil along the riverbank. Every rescue worker returning from the water makes her heart race. Every rumour spreads a fresh wave of expectation - perhaps this time they have found him. But each passing hour ends the same way.

The waters return. The rescuers return. But Momin does not.

Villagers say Shaheena barely leaves the site.

Villagers have erected a tent along the riverside, where Momin's mother waits between hope and heartbreak.
Photo Credit: NDTV, Ejaz Ul Haq Bhat

Even when darkness falls, she lingers nearby, unable to pull herself from the place that swallowed her son. Her eyes rarely leave the water.

As families in Kaloosa gather in prayer, villagers remember Momin not as the child at the centre of a desperate search operation, but as a bright, energetic boy whose presence lit up every gathering.

A Class 4 student at the local Government Middle School, Momin was known for excelling both inside and outside the classroom.

"He was a brilliant student," said his neighbour, Showkat Ahmad Ganai. "He was talented at everything."

Just weeks ago, on Independence Day, he was felicitated for a dance performance during a local event.

He was also an avid horse rider.

"At such a young age, he rode horses like a professional," Showkat said. "Everyone in the area knew him."

The cricket ball he chased has now become a heartbreaking symbol of a life interrupted too soon.

Rescuers continue the search operation as villagers and passersby stand silently along the riverbank.

On the fourth day of a search for a life that ended too abruptly, Shaheena's plea remains unchanged.