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| Uncertainty, insecurity returns among border residents | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Sep 4
Incessant firing, shelling and frequent cases of infiltration from other side have once again put the residents along border areas in deep sense of insecurity.
Since November 2003 ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan, life had limped back to normalcy along the International Border and the Line of Control and people had resumed their usual farm activity which was on doldrums after the Kargil conflict of 1999. However, since past few months a deep sense of insecurity is prevailing among the residents of border areas as cases of firing and infiltration have picked up drastically and some times getting more frequent than the pre-ceasefire times.
Reports from across the region have been pouring in on the presence of militants. It was around two to three months back when people in the border districts of Rajouri and Poonch started reporting huge presence of militants in the interiors and now a similar situation is being reported from the areas along IB, in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts.
Villagers of Laliyal border hamlet, about 1.5 km from Pakistani posts, say that movements of Pakistani rangers and other armed persons -- possibly militants -- have increased manifold.
"If border truce breaks, we will be killed in firing by Pakistanis. We are sitting ducks. We apprehend that Pakistan wants to break it (ceasefire)," Nathu Ram, who lost his brother in cross-border firing in 2001, told a visiting PTI correspondent.
The daily Pakistan firing and mortar shelling before the November 23, 2003 border ceasefire had claimed the lives of many near and dear ones of border residents. There are over 110 border hamlets in the Jammu frontier -- within 500 metres to two kilometre range of Pakistani posts -- along International Border in Hiranagar, Kathua, Ramgarh, Vijaypur, Samba, R S Pura and Akhnoor sub-sectors.
"Movement across the border has increased. This is an area of concern. But our troops are vigilant," a BSF officer said.
Besides the fear that the truce may not hold for long, Nimroo Devi, whose husband was killed in firing by Pakistani troops, said they were living under the constant dread of infiltrating militants who intimidate residents.
"Our lives have become miserable. Militants have entered two to three houses and demanded food," said the 45-year-old mother of three.
The villagers of Kanachak, Khour, Laliyal, Abdullian, Suchetgarh and Allah Miya De Kothi said that they were living a peaceful life after the ceasefire and even cultivating their lands on zeroline.
"Pakistani firing before the 2003 truce did not allow us to cultivate anything," a farmer said. Residents are also demanding greater vigilance from security forces against attempts to push in militants from Pakistan.
"How did three militants infiltrate, stay in fields in Lalyal village and then dodge several security checkposts to reach Jammu city's Chinore to carry out the recent terror attack," one Panch Souran Singh said, adding, "If ultras can reach the city, we are just soft targets". |
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