Nathu Ram and Gopal Singh, residents of Chalyari village along the border, are tired of the “little wars along the border” that time and again rips their life apart.
“Either there should be an all out war or peace,” Nathu Ram told The Hindu .
“At least 1965 and 1971 were wars. They had some meaning. This shelling has no meaning.”
Chalyari is the biggest village along the border in Jammu's Samba district where two women were killed on Wednesday in Pakistani shelling.
“The BSF jawans warned us to leave this place by 4 p.m. The shelling is likely to start again after that,” said Gopal Singh, a resident of Chalyari, who had returned to the village with a small group of men to graze cattle and visit his house.
“No one will be here after 4 p.m. Then the cattle will be on their own amid the shells,” said Nathu Ram.
The shelling from across the border began on Tuesday evening. The areas hit in Chalyari include a middle school, fields full of paddy and maize crops, and the courtyard of Buti Ram’s house.
The shell has created a small crater in the courtyard where a knife, a small steel bowl, a half-used pencil, a pair of rubber boots with holes burnt into them and red laces of a sari still lie scattered.
Buti Ram's wife and daughter-in-law were killed in this courtyard on Wednesday morning when a shell hit the house. Buti Ram, his son and his grandchildren were all wounded in the blast. The bodies of the two women could not be cremated in Chalyari for the fear of another attack.
“This is our life. The leaders and officers make promises to us every time there is firing from across the border but as soon as it stops, they forget about us,” said 65-year-old Nathu Ram. “I have seen firing and shelling all through my life — 1962, 65, 71, 87, 95, 99, 2002 and after that. I have heard promises of five marlas (151 square yards or 1/32 of an acre) of land away from the border, but now I feel too tired to run or complain about not getting the land.”
Nathu Ram told The Hindu “the people on the other side, they live like us. They grow the same crops. They too have left behind their houses and livelihood.”Across the fields, three Pakistani villages -- Poorachak, Naila Chak, Namdyal -- lie in full view of the BSF outpost here and whenever the shells are fired, those three get battered the most.
“We share the same lives and the same deaths on this border,” said Uttam Singh, another villager. In an Ashram in Nanath along the Samba-Kathua highway, men, women and children from three villages along the LoC have been camping since Wednesday. The families sit in small groups next to each other and the children complain of hunger.
“We were given lunch at 1 p.m. and it is 6 p.m. now. We are hungry and I have no money. We have to wait for the dinner that is still a few hours away,” said Anita Devi, a Class IX student.
Anita Devi studies in government High School in Sarthian, Chalyari, and she wants to go back to her school and home. This is the first time she had to flee her house because of shelling.
“There is no privacy here, I feel like I am on the street,” she said. “My exams were going on at the school. Now I hear that the shells are falling all over our village and I feel so far away from my home, my school and my books.”
