Look Life along the line of control

The villagers of Balakote and Silikot near the Line of Control in Uri in Baramulla live just 850 meters from the Pakistan Army posts on the mountain slopes of occupied Kashmir.

They are finally picking up the threads of life that were horribly frightened by the continuous shelling and sabotage in the last three years.

It has been one week since the ceasefire between India and Pakistan ceased to exist after the guns were renewed on the Line of Control.

However, the people here wait and see how long the ceasefire will last. Silicoat resident Lassa Dar hopes the ceasefire agreement will, however, change the lives of fragile, border residents.

The soldiers of the LoC continue to be guarded in Uri, but there is a sense of calm on their faces.

For scores of border residents, peace may come as a time of healing, although many traces remain fresh.

Lassa Dar’s niece, 15-year-old Shahista Bano, is the eldest of five siblings. The daughter of a laborer, she is forced to play the role of a mother at an early age.

Her mother, Farooq Begum, was killed by a powerful shell from PoK on 13 November last year. Last week, despite the tragedy on November 15, two days before his English paper, Shahista passed his Class 10 examination.

Ghulam Qadir Chalku, a retired employee of 67 years, often suffers trauma. He lost his wife to Pakistani shelling in 2003 and his son lost both his legs in 2001 when a shell exploded.

Officials said that 22 civilians have been killed in border skirmishes along the LoC in 2020, the most violations since the Kargil war.

Like the border villages of Rajouri, Poonch, Samba, Kathua, Bandipora and Kupwara districts, Uri also turned into a theater of war at least 21 times last year.

Surrounded by multilevel barbed fences on three sides and PoK pickets on the fourth, the people of Silikot village live in a serious community.

All members of the village’s approximately 16 households have to share their biometrics with the military whenever they pass through a single, well-timed entry.

Nearly half of the villagers in more than two dozen houses have left their property in Silicot and moved to safer places in the city of Uri. But not everyone can afford to do so.