Uri: Mohammad Ashraf, 45, and his son-in-law Ishfaq Ahmed, rushed to shelter under their porch when they heard a siren at 5 am on 10 May. Within 10 minutes, a shell fell near their house and wrecked it.
Two days later, Ashraf, a resident of Bandi village, which falls within five kilometres of the Line of Control with Pakistan, takes stock of the damage at his shelled house. He tries to salvage the belongings from his house, which had shattered windows, cracked walls and perforated the tin roof.
“It will be a waste of money to renovate this house now because what all can we fix? It cannot sustain any pressure amid this uncertainty,” he says.
Life in Uri town and neighbouring villages seems to have come to a halt because of the incessant shelling by Pakistan after India’s launched Operation Sindoor at terror camps and centres in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on 7 May. Areas along the Line of Control have borne the brunt of the flare-up.
Although a ceasefire seems to be in place at present, most people have left Uri and neighbouring villages to seek refuge with relatives in Baramulla and other towns. Those without relatives have chosen to shelter at Govt. Degree College Baramulla.
Restaurants, grocery shops, farming and other activities are on hold. “We have sent our women and children to Baramulla to my in-laws so that we don’t have to think about their safety. We came here to take stock of the house, which is there but not there actually,” says 30-year-old Ishfaq Ahmed.
Residents seek permanent ceasefire
Maqbool Bandey, a resident of Uri, says he wants both India and Pakistan to understand that local people are eager to return to normal life without the threat of attacks. “It is easy to say temporary migration, but in the absence of your business, farms, home, etc. I can’t even visit my kitchen garden because of the fear of shells.”
Bandey stayed in the village during the nights of 8 May to 10 May, taking shelter in a mosque with three others, and later moved to Degree College Uri on 11 May.
“We want Kashmir to be like any other aspiring part of the world with developments, jobs, tourism and, most importantly, normalcy,” says another resident.
In Lagama, 10 km from Uri’s main market, Sajjad’s grocery shop was hit with a shell on the night of 8 May.
Burnt musk melons, onions, bottles of kiwi and orange juice, a burnt weighing machine and tin sheets lay strewn in debris.
“At 11 pm on 8 May, Pakistan started shelling towards Uri, and India also retaliated. By 12 at night, I got to know about a fire incident in my shop, but I couldn’t confirm because of continuous shelling. When we got up in the morning, we got to know we had lost everything,” said Sajjad.
He said business in Uri depends on a permanent ceasefire. “Even if we start our business from zero again, it will get shelled in months or years. We don’t feel like investing here.”
The picturesque town of Uri, surrounded by pine-covered mountains, was among the first areas attacked by Pakistani tribal forces during the 1947 invasion. Indian troops recaptured it days later. The town has since remained a flashpoint in every chapter of the India-Pakistan conflict.
On 11 May, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti visited the town and tried to console shopkeepers. “There should be better facilities here,” one shopkeeper told her.
“To hell with bunkers. Will you live in a bunker for your whole life? You should say, ‘Let there be peace, and we don’t need bunkers’,” said Mehbooba.
Uri’s National Conference MLA, Sajad Shafi, tells ThePrint that hundreds of houses have been damaged because of the shelling.
“We have suffered right from the 1947, 1965 and 1971 wars and the 1998 shellings, and for the last 35 years. Whenever there is hostility between two countries, it is the people on the border who suffer the most. We have lost lives, houses and agricultural lands,” says Shafi.
“This should be a permanent ceasefire. We want to live like the people of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Islamabad and Karachi.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)