Basheer Ahmad Teroo’s Dard-Shin Museum

• Basheer Ahmad Teroo, a 48-year-old man from Gurez Valley, is preserving the Dard-Shin tribe’s culture.

• He has been collecting and storing items from the tribe’s culture for the past three years.

• In 2022, Teroo received 75 items from his mother, including jewellery, kitchen utensils, footwear, and clothing, for safekeeping.

• He began displaying these items during his visits to the Dard-Shin people across the Gurez region, including Tulail.

• In three years, he has amassed 457 antique items, including a woman’s 20-year-old wedding pheran and a 107-year-old wooden horse saddle.

• The museum houses clothing and jewellery, daily household and farm items, and Shina literature and poetry.

• The Dard-Shin tribe, classified as a Scheduled Tribe by the Union government, traces its origins to Gilgit.

• The Indian Army built the Shina Culture Centre in Dawar a year after Teroo started his museum, reconstructing articles of Dard-Shin culture.