Srinagar, April 17 -- The photographs reached my phone on the morning of April 12, 2026. A friend from Mochwa Baghe Mehtab sent images of workers moving along Canal Road with axes, targeting the mulberry trees that had lined this embankment since the 1970s.

Sawdust covered the ground where six trees had already fallen. The remaining fifty-six stood in the path of chainsaws scheduled to return the following day.

I posted the images to social media within the hour. The response came rapidly: nearly one lakh views, messages flooding in from sericulture workers, environmentalists, and families who remembered the oxygen shortages of 2021.

Director Ajaz Ahmad Bhat of the Jammu and Kashmir Sericulture Development Department was in Delhi atten...