Many villages along the International Border (IB) and the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan in the Kathua-Samba-Jammu-Rajouri belt were completely deserted by Saturday, despite people initially showing a reluctance to leave.
“There was intense firing around 4am today and the moment it stopped, we left,” said Chuni Lal of Pallanwala village, which is located at a stone-throw distance from the LoC in the Akhnoor sector of Jammu district. Pallanwala, 84 km west of winter capital Jammu, has been completely deserted.
Officials said that the Pakistan Rangers targeted Border Security Force (BSF) positions along the LoC in Akhnoor sector on Saturday using small arms and automatic guns. “The BSF retaliated, using the same calibre weapons,” they added. However, the Pakistani authorities alleged that it were the BSF which initiated the firing. A statement issued by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in Islamabad said, “Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing which started at 4 am and continued till 8 am at LoC in Bhimber sector today.” No casualties were reported on either side.
Chuni Lal and his family, like most of their neighbours, have since relocated to Khour, a village 29 km from Pallanwalla, where they are using a school building and nearby temple premises as temporary accommodation. Some families have moved further away to Jourian (61 km from Jammu city) and a few have gone to Pounichak and Jammu to stay with their relatives.
Among those relocated is Anjli, who had married a youth from a neighbouring village just a day before officials arrived at Pallanwala to ask residents to leave, “for their own safety”. She was still in her bridal dress when the family of six boarded a tractor-trolley at Pallanwala on Saturday morning to relocate to Khour. There were several tanks stationed outside an Army camp at Jourian when reporters visited the area around noon on Saturday.
“Frankly speaking, we had, over the past two days, ignored repeated calls from the police and the administration to leave. Last evening, the Army also told us to move out and then firing started at 4 am, which soon became intense. When it stopped after few hours, we packed up, taking only personal items with us,” said Manohar Singh Jamwal, another resident.
The villagers have locked their homes, leaving almost all household items inside, with many of them taking just some essential items and their livestock with them.
“We are used to such dislocations and, in fact, this was a routine phenomenon prior to the (November) 2003 ceasefire (agreement between India and Pakistan),” Jamwal said. What is, however, more painful for the dwellers — most of them farmers — this time is that they had also to leave behind the standing basmati crops unattended.
Officials said that many of the 150 villages identified by them as “most vulnerable” due to their close proximity to the IB and the LoC, have been evacuated of civilian population in anticipation of Pakistani troops’ retaliatory action to the “surgical strikes” conducted by the Indian Army across the LoC.
They confirmed that initially, the border-dwellers were reluctant to leave their homes even as the authorities declared a high alert and asked for the evacuation of civilians from villages falling within 10 km from the border. But, following intense firing incidents from across the border on Saturday morning, the villagers left Pallanwala and neighbouring areas and have since relocated to “safer locations” about 20 km to 35 km away from the border. Most of them are now staying in school buildings, community halls and places of worship, and the authorities are struggling hard to provide them basic amenities at their temporary accommodations.
Earlier, authorities closed schools and other educational institutions in those areas indefinitely and sent buses to the border belt to transport residents out from areas that have been declared as “out of bounds for any civilian movement”. Officials said that more than 30,000 people have left their homes in the four districts — Kathua, Samba and Jammu — along the IB and the LoC. Also, hundreds of people have moved out of the areas falling in close proximity of the de facto border in the Kashmir Valley region including Uri, Gurez and Tangdhar sectors of Baramulla, Bandipore and Kupwara districts.
The officials said that the administration has set up make-shift tent camps and arranged food facilities for the dislocated. Apart from Jammu and Kashmir, the other border states of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat are also on alert, with the BSF having deployed its units along the IB as a pre-emptive measure.
