Kishtwar: Indian Army personnel construct a Bailey bridge as part of restoration work at cloudburst-hit Chadoti village, in Kishtwar district, Jammu and Kashmir. (PTI Photo)

CHASOTI: A long beard, a navy-blue cap, a megaphone, and a child in his lap. That was how the world met Shahnawaz, an SDRF member from Doda in J&K. His photo — cradling a 13-month-old girl pulled alive from rubble at Chasoti village in Kishtwar district — has gone viral.Calls and messages poured in. Strangers wanted to adopt the baby. “Her parents have been found. She is with them now, but people don’t believe me,” Shahnawaz said Sunday. They kept calling.Flash floods from a cloudburst on Aug 14 tore through Chasoti’s hillside stream. Rajai Nalla roared, hurling down boulders, trees, homes. A bridge snapped. People crossing the wooden span were swept away. Pilgrims at campsites and langars for Machail Mata Yatra vanished in a matter of seconds. At least 61 dead, 116 injured, and about 70 still missing.Rescue teams dug with excavators. Relatives stood along mud-brown banks, eyes fixed on orange vests. Desperation pushed them dangerously close to the torrent until one voice cut through: “Step back.”That was Shahnawaz again, megaphone in hand, sprinting up and down the stream. “Everyone is desperate. You cannot stop them from rushing to the spot when they hear that a body has been found,” he said, his voice turning hoarse.On Aug 14 evening, while clearing a shattered home, he spotted a faint movement — a tiny arm under debris. He pulled out the child, cleaned her, and wrapped her in a blanket. Then he asked colleagues to free a woman trapped nearby — the girl’s mother, a healthcare worker. Alive. “When the child began to cry, I was happy,” he said.Later that night, when phone networks revived, Shahnawaz’s photo exploded online. “I felt proud that people recognised our work. We gave our 100%. Saving lives brought us happiness.”The girl was handed back to her father, who had been frantically searching.Shahnawaz kept moving. The next day, Independence Day, he revived another girl with CPR and mouth-to-mouth. He had seen Kishtwar’s worst for six years since he joined SDRF in 2019 — bodies fished from Chenab’s icy currents after road crashes in the region’s harsh terrain. “Last winter, after pulling bodies from the freezing river, I felt my blood circulation had stopped,” he said.His family has always been supportive and proud of his work, despite the dangers. “They’re happy I saved the infant,” he said, smiling. Then he turned serious, patting the megaphone slung by his side: “It has drained my voice, but it is part of my job.” As dusk fell on Chasoti, Shahnawaz’s chilling warning echoed — stay away from the killer stream.