By Shivani Shrivastava
With everything moving at a quick pace, we don’t take a moment to pause and think about the things happening around the world, well, unless they affect us. But today is different. Let’s pause for a few minutes to read the story of Altaf Qadri, a real-life hero.
Qadri is a photojournalist with AP (Associated Press), but his story goes way back to when he was in school, studying in class 11. Being born and brought up in Srinagar, Kashmir, he was exposed to atrocities of terrorism. But it all felt real when after an attack, the BSF jawans held him at gunpoint while he was returning from the mosque, and used him as a human shield. At that very moment, all he could think was how he wished he had a camera to shoot everything happening in front of his eyes...
We’ve seen it in movies - after a terror attack, you can hear thuds, everyone is screaming, running in different directions. You can listen to all those voices, yet you can’t hear a word. You don’t know what is happening around you and so you run too. Your eyes become blurry and before you realize anything, there’s a blackout. We can only imagine what happens when there’s a war but being in the middle of one is a different thing altogether. You are scared for your life, and the fear of death ...
Qadri is a highly celebrated photojournalist for his coverage of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya. He went missing when he crossed over into Libya to cover the revolution for AP through the Egyptian land port of Salloum, the main border point between Egypt and Libya. Watch his journey in this 'The Toughest Men In India' video by MensXP and see what happened:
Altaf Qadri is an unsung hero. When two countries are at war, the real fighters are the soldiers fighting on both sides, and then there are people like Qadri, doing their duties at the border to serve their country, without fail. Kudos to him! Though it has been eight years since the incident happened but it’s never too late to appreciate a real-life hero.
Qadri, who has outdone his duties - both, as a reporter and as a human being - is definitely one of the toughest men we have in our country.