Amidst shower of shells, mother, newborn escape

Villagers’ appeal to Pakistan Army falls on deaf ears

Shahana Ara, who delivered a baby 10 days ago, escapes as shells rained in on Silikote village.

The house of Shahana Ara, who gave birth 10 days ago, shook due to the shelling by Pakistani troops in Silikote village, just 8 km from Uri town, around 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.

“We asked the village elders to make an appeal to the Pakistani Army over the loudspeakers of a local mosque to stop the firing for half-an-hour,” said Shahana’s elder sister Riffat. “But the appeal failed. Shahana could not fit into a bunker due to the stitches from the surgery at the time of delivery.”

So she trudged over a kilometre to dodge the shells and firing to hit the road and board a vehicle round the corner of a mountain in order to survive. She was taken straight to a hospital. “I felt the mother’s stitches were coming off and the baby was getting cold,” said Riffat.

The growing tension on the Line of Control has put the border town of Uri on the edge.

Also Read

Watch | Life along the LoC

‘Gates closed’

Shahana and her family were lucky to make it out of the firing zone. However, around 120 villagers of Hiel Mohalla in Tilwardi village failed to come out because the area is enclosed by an Army fence. “We pleaded that the gates be opened but no one paid heed,” said Khursheed Ahmad, whose relatives were stranded in the area.

Zulfikar Ali, 24, who lives in a camp at the Girls’ Higher Secondary School in Uri lost contact with his family in the morning. “My village is face to face with Pakistani posts. Indian Army posts are also near the population. The shelling automatically closed the hi-tech fence doors. My father, mother and brother are stuck in Charunda now and intermittent firing is on,” said Ali, who appealed to the government to permanently shift the village.

At least eight villages on the zero line have been compartmentalised due to the Army fence.

“We can’t escape the firing. There is only one door on the fence in Churanda. Only Allah can save my family now,” said Ali, who kept looking at the ridge for any smoke billowing from his village.

Churanda is home to 1,256 people.