Uri: With the escalation of tension between India and Pakistan and war clouds hover overhead following Pahalgam terror ttack, apart from the valley, fear has gripped the frontier sectors of north Kashmir as people fear war migration again because of growing India-Pakistan hostilities.
Lal Din a Sarpanch of border village Churdanda adjacent to Line of Control in Uri fears the time may have come to migrate again as India and Pakistan may indulge border shelling.
“The situation in our village has turned critical following the fresh hostilities between India and Pakistan following Pahalgam terror attack. Anything can happen. We fear the worst: there could be war which makes us sleepless,” Lal Din added.
He added that they want both India and Pakistan to shun the path of violence and war so that people of frontier villages can live a peaceful life as they are worst suffers of the cross-border violence.
Villages like Audoosa, Sailikote, Churanda, Kamalkote,Tilwara, Hathlanga, Soura Balkote, Mothal and other adjoining villages suffer the most when tension escalates. Border violence forces their residents to migrate several times in the past.
“If they (Pakistanis) fire a shell it lands in our village our village is close in the line of fire. Those who cry war sitting in their cozy houses and are living in safe zone but we have to bear the brunt,” Irshad Ahmed, a resident of frontier village Sailikote said.
“We don’t sleep in the night as we fear that if shelling starts a shell fired by the Pakistani side might anytime land on our house and kill us. Our children suffer the most…their education is hampered. They also become victims of psychological trauma,” he added.
“Our villagers migrated during the 1947 war and again in 1965 and 1971 besides during the 1999 Kargil conflict. People had to live for years in migrant camps,” another resident said.
People living the frontier villages further said that military aggression and war is no solution to any problem. It worsens problems further as fallouts of the three previous wars are before everyone.
There is an uneasy calm prevailing in the border villages as the villages fall virtually in the line of Pakistani weapons and bear the brunt of border skirmishes.
“The media talks about war strategies, but no one talks about the families stuck in the middle. We need peace, not more violence,” Dr. Sajad Sahfi MLA Uri said.
Similar conditions are, more less, encountered by people in Keran, Pethharn, Dardkote, Hamam Markoot, Saidpora, Mandiyan, Kalaroos, Keran, Teetwal, Chabkote, Tanghdar, Dardpora in Kupwara and 15 villages in Bandipora’s Gurez sector such as Dawar, Neel, Jibran, Kurakbal and Telail.
As per official sources, up to 300,000 people live in border villages of Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipora districts, while an estimated 70,000-100,000 soldiers and Border Security Troopers are deployed in these frontier villages.
