Life on the edge as guns boom on Line of Control

Srinagar: Manohar Singh Jamwal didn’t want to leave his standing crops behind. Nor did other residents of Pallanwala, located at a stone’s throw from the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir’s Akhnoor sector.

And so, when government and police officials came knocking on their doors several time on the early morning of October 1, a couple of days after India crossed the border to hit the terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, the residents pleaded.

“Let us wait and watch.”

Hours later, heavy firing and shelling from across the LoC, which started around 4 am and continued for some time, made the decision on the residents’ behalf. By noon, Pallanwalla had been completely deserted.

“It is traumatic and painful,” Jamwal said about having to leave behind the crop “neglected and unattended”. “Only the peasant who has worked hard in the field in harsh conditions for months can understand (that),” he said.

While most took shelter in school buildings, community halls and temple complexes in Khour, some 29 km off Pallanwalla, a few of the families moved further away to Jourian. Some chose to go to Pounichak and Jammu, 84 km in the east, to stay with their relatives.

“We are used to such dislocations. In fact, this was a routine phenomenon prior to the (November) 2003 ceasefire (agreement between India and Pakistan),” Jamwal said. “But the fear about what might happen to the crops kept us from leaving this time,” he said.

Among the villagers on the move was Anjli, who had moved into her new home only a couple of days ago after tying the nuptial knot with a local youth. The celebrations at the groom’s place were still on when police arrived asking people to leave “for your own safety”. She was still in her bridal dress when the family of six boarded a tractor-trolley to relocate to Khour. “Qismat mein yehi tha. Honi ko kaun taal sakta hai,” she said.

Thousands of border-dwellers left their home and heath elsewhere along the LoC, mainly in Jammu and Rajouri districts, and in many areas falling in close proximity to the International Border (IB) in Kathua-Samba-Jammu belt too. But others refused to leave despite warnings issues by the authorities. In fact, many families who had shifted to safer locations during past about one week started returning with guns falling silent on Thursday.

Officials had identified as many as 150 villages as “most vulnerable” for their close proximity to the IB-called working boundary by Islamabad- and the LoC and asked their civilian populations to leave in anticipation of Pakistani troops retaliatory action to the ‘surgical strikes’ conducted by the Indian Army across the LoC earlier.

The other areas where migration has taken place include Nowshera and Sunderbani sectors of Rajouri district. Officials have put their number at nearly 3,000. Nowshera’s SDM, Harbans Lal Sharma, said necessary arrangements have been made to provide basis amenities to the displaced families at the temporary accommodations. But like those at Khour and other places, the displaced families have complained of poor and inadequate exigency arrangement being in place to meet the situation.