Ceasefire violations across LoC in Kashmir leave scores of people dead, properties destroyed

Last Sunday, the sky over north Kashmir's Tumina village, around 30 km from Kupwara town, was clear and the temperature had bumped up slightly. Six-year-old Ziyan, sporting a red shirt, black leggings and a pair of ordinary sandals was playing by himself on the porch of his decrepit house.

Around 5 pm, the Line of Control in Keran sector, some 40 kms away, again heated up and the troops from both sides of the divide fired volleys. Soon little Ziyan let out a doleful cry. His pregnant mother Nazima hobbled to the porch and saw him bleeding from a gash to the head. She clung her son to her chest and wrapped her head scarf around his wound. Amid a rat-a-tat of consistent firing,  Nazima shouted for help but to no avail. Ziyan was in searing pain, letting out sharp yells. More or less after two hours he dropped his arms and fell quiet.

The troops from both sides on LoC in Keran sector have exchanged heavy firing for past few days, killing at least three persons on this side of Kashmir.

Srinagar-based defence spokesperson Colonel Rajesh Kalia said that Pakistan restored to ceasefire violation and targeted civilian population, resulting in the death of three persons including a child and a woman.

On April 10, some residential houses in nearby Panzgam village also suffered damage as Indian troops retaliated to the Pakistan's ceasefire violation from a nearby playfield in the village.

The local residents say that some time, the shells do not cross the LoC and land in the nearby villages killing civilians. "We are usually caught in the cross firing. Nobody knows whose shell will hit whom," says a knot of local residents in Panzgam.

As the firing stopped, Nazima called her brother Mohammd Aslam who rushed to her house and tried to shift Ziyan to hospital but it was too late. By then he had curled up his toes. "In broken syllables, he had asked his mother to call me so that I could race him to the hospital," said Aslam.

"You can imagine the helplessness of a mother who lost her son in her lap".

Both India and Pakistan declared a ceasefire along the LoC and International Border in November 2003. However, there hardly seems any respect for the truce. The ceasefire agreement has been violated a plethora of times so far, and each time the armies of both sides shift blame on each other for the contravention.

Last month Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik said that there had been a total of 646 incidents of ceasefire violations along the Indo-Pakistan International Border (IB) as well as the Line of Control (LoC) between January 1 and February 23 this year. Around 32,000 ceasefire violations by Pakistan were recorded in 2019.

The security establishment sees cross-border infiltration as the main factor behind the ceasefire violation by Pakistan. On April 5, five militants who were attempting to sneak into this side of border were killed by army men in Keran sector. At least five soldiers also died in the gunfight.

As a few locals lowered the body of little Ziyan in the grave, two more persons including a woman killed during the firing in neighbouring Chowkibal village located across a gurgling stream were also consigned to earth.

Dreams shatter

While little Ziyan and two other deceased are lying under the oblong mounds of earth, Farooq Ahmad Katariya is looking pensively at his destroyed house. A few shells had landed in his wood and mud house turning it into charcoal in a jiffy.

Katariya's house was located a short walk away from where Ziyan was hit.

"Fortunately, we were in fields when the shelling occurred otherwise we would have been killed," said Katariya.

The only thing Katariya could found through the detritus of his house was the carcasses of his cattle. A cow and a calf were inside the house when the exchange of volleys between India and Pakistan took place.

Katariya, a labourer by profession, says that everything he had went up in smoke. "Somehow, a few years ago I had constructed this house and now I am left with nothing," Katariya said.

Amid the COVID 19 pandemic, last month UN General Secretary António Guterres had called for a global cease fire. Although 70 countries across the globe endorsed his call, India and Pakistan seem to have preferred to shut their mind to it.

"It is rather unfortunate that there is no respect for truce even during these tough times. Both India and Pakistan should respond to the UN call and observe ceasefire along the borders," said Shahnawaz Mantoo, a Valley-based political observer. "Even the warring parties inside Kashmir must announce a ceasefire given the global pandemic," Mantoo added.