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| Landmines fear looms large on border residents | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Vaibhavi Chandel sept. 20:Jammu and Kashmir state has confronted many problems in the last few years. The infestation of the militancy surely mounted the problems of the people living near the border areas. But expect that even there are so many issues which have created troubles for the people living close to the border and one such issue is of the landmines.
The landmines in the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir bordering Pakistan and the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) have claimed more than 1800 lives of innocent persons, including soldiers, during the past ten years. The residents of the border towns of Poonch and Rajouri are the worst victims who have fallen prey to these land mines.
The Indian army during the operation ‘Parakram’ planted thousands of landmines in Rajouri, Poonch, Uri, Ranbirsingh Pura, Chamb Jaurian among other areas along International Border and LoC to prevent infiltration, but these mines afterwards claimed many innocent lives. Many people were killed and many others were left seriously injured. The mines were planted in agricultural fields and uncultivated land and around villages in these areas.
There is no precise data about the victims of landmine blasts as these were planted even in areas which are remote. The agencies gather data from news reports itself. The official number mentioned could be more than stated.
After a year, however army started removing these mines from these areas. But during that removing process, as per the official record, more than 90 percent of the mines were removed successfully but still more than 5 percent of the mines were ‘ not found’ because these might have been drifted away due to heavy rains and floods.
Such landmines which have been drifted away by rain water are common in Rajouri and Poonch. Thus the mines claimed their victims as soon as they stepped out of their homes. Not only humans but large number of cattleheads has also perished after straying into the mined areas.
Even as per official records, 129 people fell victim to the landmines during the year 2000 in J&K and 715 people were injured due to landmines in 2000. In year 2001 the number shot up to 332 and came down to 189 during 2002. But there are so many landmine victims which are living a life of misery .
As pr the reports of the landmine Monitor organization that keeps a watch over the landmines in entire world, over the past 10 years, some 3,000 people across India have fallen victim of the landmine explosions, but mostly in Jammu and Kashmir, have fallen victim to landmine explosions”.
Many NGOs have come to the rescue of the landmine victims by providing artificial limbs to them.
“We are helping the mine victims by providing them with artificial limbs. Our organization has so far provided artificial limbs to nearly 4317 mine blast victims”, Jagveer Singh, a retired school principal who is running Pritam Spiritual Foundation in Poonch.
“Out of the total mine victims in the state , 62 percent belong to the border district of Poonch. We even provided artificial limbs to 14 residents of the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir who had come to this side of the border to meet their relatives on valid permit” said Singh.
For Zadia Kouser a landmine victim from Rajouri, lost her leg few years back to a landmine, life has become static but later army provided her relief in the form of an artificial limb.
“I could not forget that ill-fated day. I just stepped out of my home and met with that tragedy. The scars of that trauma still haunts me, but life means to live in every condition. Although an artificial leg is no replacement for a real one but at least now I can walk on my own” she says.
During the recent past many cases have come in which ultras had planted anti personnel mines on the patrolling strips in border areas against the army and Border Security Force (BSF). Even the DIG, BSF, OP Tanwar was the highest ranking officer who was killed in a landmine blast in November 2009 when terrorists planted an IED on patrolling strip in Ramgarh sector of Jammu.
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