As Ceasefire Holds, Border -Dwellers Return Home Cautiously and with Unease
Srinagar: As the ceasefire agreed upon by India and Pakistan at the weekend holds, the border residents in Jammu and Kashmir forced to flee to safer hinterlands to escape past week’s deadly cross-border firing and shelling on Monday began to return to their homes though cautiously and with unease.
“Many people were eager to return to their hearth and homes as quickly as possible. It is a natural human response after the trauma of displacement caused by the disastrous cross-LoC shelling but most of them are not satisfied. They remain unconvinced of the durability of the truce,” said Irshad Ahmed Khawaja, a reporter based in the border town of Uri over the phone.
Kashmir watchers say that the scepticism stems mainly from the past experiences of the border-dwellers when ceasefire pledges of the two countries’ military leaderships were repeatedly broken on ground. Apart from the historical precedent and mistrust, the cause of the deep-rooted fears is the lingering issues between the two sides remaining unresolved.
“We saw scores of innocent people including women and children being killed and injured in the cross-LoC shelling. People were devastated by the loss of their homes and possessions too. They have gone through such traumas in the past also as the ceasefire agreements were repeatedly breached. It is why they remain deeply apprehensive about the sustainability of the latest pledge,” said Dr. Noor Ahmad Baba, political analyst and former professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Kashmir.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah, during a visit to Poonch city, the worst hit in the recent Pakistani shelling, announced that the border-dwellers who fled their homes to escape violence last week can now return. “They should now try to return to their homes. The security forces have sanitised the villages,” he said, adding “Eighty to ninety per cent of Poonch town is vacant. The residents had left their homes when shelling was taking place. Now that it has stopped, they can return to their homes.”
The authorities said that the J&K police, the Army and other security forces detected and subsequently defused a couple of dozen unexploded artillery shells, mortars and other ordinances across the border areas. These ordinances were lying in civilian areas after being fired from across the border and were neutralised during a widespread sanitization campaign in the border belt started by the security forces to ensure no more civilians were harmed. In the Pakistani shelling and drone and missile strikes between May 7 and 10, more than two dozen civilians and nine security personnel from the Army, Border Security Force and Indian Air Force were killed (the authorities have acknowledged only six fatalities among the security forces)
Meanwhile, J&K’s education minister Sakina Itoo has announced that the schools, colleges and other educational institutions closed as a precautionary measure amid the escalation between India and Pakistan last week will reopen on Tuesday except in the border areas. The authorities have said that the flight operations from both Srinagar and Jammu airports have resumed and that the Hajj flights from Srinagar’s Sheikh-ul-Alam International Airport disrupted due to the closure of the airport will begin to take off again as per already announced schedule from May 14.