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Constant firing, shelling create hell for border residents

By Heena Tabassum. Dated: 2/22/2018 2:15:13 PM

Large number of people along the border are living in a state of fear due to the escalation in tensions. It was in 2003 that India and Pakistan mutually agreed to cease the cross-Loc fire and therefore put an end to the damages and fatalities not only suffered by the two armies but also by the people living there. However, with a number of ceasefire violations recorded almost every year the truce has been literally called off.
Last month four Indian soldiers were killed and one was wounded after Pakistani troops fired on Indian posts in the Jammu region. One of the soldiers killed in the shelling was an officer.
Recently, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said that 25 civilians were killed along the International Border (IB) and Line of Control (LoC) and 162 have been injured in the last two years. In a written reply to a question, the chief minister, who is also home minister, said that 224 houses were damaged in cross-border shelling. She said that 13 civilians were killed and 83 injured in shelling along the border in 2016 and in 2017, 12 people were killed and 79 injured.
At least eight civilians were killed and 22 others injured in another such incident along the border in Jammu province on November 1, 2016.
In January this year, three civilians including a woman were killed and 24 others including two Border Security Force (BSF) troopers and 22 civilians were injured in Pakistan shelling and firing on the international border. Over a dozen cattle were also killed in indiscriminate shelling by Pakistan Rangers on the international border and over 20 outposts of the BSF were targeted by Pakistan rangers in Kathua, Samba and Jammu districts on the international border. Again migration of civilians started in R.S. Pura, Ramgarh and Suchetgarh areas close to the international border.
Over 12 people were killed last month, six of them were citizens. These clashes between the armed forces of India and Pakistan at the border is consuming precious lives. Due to frequent trade of fire between the two sides, shells often hit the residences of people living near the line of control and result in fatalities on regular basis. The situation has made thousands of people abandon their homes and migrate to other locations. Thousands of residents from border villages in Jammu, Samba, Kathua and other districts migrated to safer places. Similarly, hundreds of families in Karnah and other border areas of Kashmir also migrate to safer places during such situations, due to war hysteria.
The death and destruction caused by the firing is unprecedented and these border skirmishes have caused a great humanitarian crises in the border areas. The lives of the residents of these border areas have been uprooted with each displacement and they have been living in constant fear and threat, children have been particularly affected.
Anybody who has visited the border areas, even once, feels pained while expressing his observations as every hamlet, every family and every individual has a painful story to tell. These brave heart border residents say that they feel they are in a war zone with sounds of mortar bombs and rattle of automatic weapons booming in the area.
This time the shelling is very intense and according to some of the border dwellers they have not seen such intense firing and shelling even in the 1965 and 1971 wars.
In the hamlets, devastation is visible all around. The bustling settlements in many border hamlets along the Indo-Pak border now wear an empty look, with over 40,000 villagers abandoning their homes to escape heavy shelling by Pakistani forces. These border towns with thousands of population, now resemble as ghost towns with only a few people left in these hamlets to take care of animals and to guard homes.
Around 40,000 people have been evacuated by the government. While most of the border dwellers have migrated from their places and some of them are living with their relatives, many are camped in boarding and lodging places setup by the government in schools.
Over 5000 cattle have also been shifted from various border hamlets to safer places.
Farming, schooling, cattle rearing and everything else on which border dwellers survive have come to a halt due to the shelling. Agricultural and grazing activities for livestock are being hampered. The undesirable and the adverse effects resulting from the displacement hamper the socio-cultural life, deprivation of educational facilities and essential services like communication and transport, and also loss of identity and a dignified life. Moreover, education for thousands of children is being interrupted because In such incidents, the authorities order closure of hundreds of schools in these border areas.
Recently Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir said the home ministry has approved a proposal for construction of 14,460 bunkers to mitigate the hardships of the people living along the International Border and the Line of Control due to cross-border firing. "These include 1,431 large community bunkers and 13,029 individual bunkers in the districts of Samba, Jammu, Kathua, Poonch and Rajouri.
The project is being implemented by the Jammu and Kashmir government," he told the Lok Sabha while replying to a written question.
Although the government has approved construction of 14,460 bunkers for the protection of the people living in forward areas but the hardships and miseries of the people living in border areas are unending.
The cross-border skirmishes have taken a heavy toll on the people and must be avoided at all costs as they have created humanitarian crises. The engagement needs to be started both at the political level as well as at the military and diplomatic level to end the stand-off and garner peace in the region.
According to reports, in a joint calling attention petition, a large number of eminent citizens of the divided State of Jammu and Kashmir have urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to resume ceasefire along the Line of Control and begin the process of dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue by including all the people of Jammu and Kashmir. An initiative led by two eminent civil society activists across the LoC; Anuradha Bhasin, Executive Editor, daily Kashmir Times, Jammu and Ershad Mahmud, Executive Director, Center for Peace, Development and Reforms, has gained momentum and it so far has got signatures from various senior political leaders, poets, authors, journalists, civil society activists, former civil servants, ex-diplomats and army personnel, as well as people from the academia.
The petition pronounces that if current tension at the borders is allowed to prolong, it will jeopardize the stability of the region and might escalate into an all-out war. Besides, the skirmishes at the LoC augment the sufferings of the people residing not just near the border areas, but eventually of the entire population of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State.
It also raises concern and anxiety regarding the mushrooming growth of radical elements and war mongers in India and Pakistan who exploit the situation on LoC to promote hatred between the two countries and the ongoing spate of violence would sanction the war mongers on both sides. It also urges the political leadership in New Delhi and Islamabad to impress upon their respective militaries for bringing an immediate end to this continuum of shelling and firing.
(The author is student of IIMC, Jammu)