Fire Stops, Fear Remains

Mortar fire from across the LoC has once again upended life in Kashmir's border villages, reviving haunting memories of past violence. Homes lie shattered, schools deserted and families displaced as fear grips communities. The recent skirmishes have torn through a fragile normalcy, exposing the deep vulnerability of life along the border

- Ishfaq Naseem

WHEN the shells came raining down on Churunda, the last village at the Line of Control (LoC), Hafeeza Begum, 30, rushed with her two children to the damp bunker, a dark concrete structure with small boarded-up windows. She stepped out only after the shelling from across the LoC border stopped. With the guns silent, she’s back to her chores—waving a stick at the cattle under a harsh sun, as homebound children from the village trudge uphill from school, their backpacks bouncing.

As the guns fell silent, life edged back. A school stirred and a mosque got busy once again. In Churunda, labourers fixed solar lights, kids returned to class and groups of men stooped to weed their maize fields. Recalling the hard time, she had faced when the shells pounded the hillside village, a dismal-looking Hafeeza said: “We stayed mostly in the bunker, moving out when the shelling stopped, to eat food or feed the cows. When the area was being shelled, I didn’t graze the cows on the village pastures. I fed them hay.”

School teacher Gulnaz Neer, working at Government Boys Primary School Churunda, recalled a similarly bleak time in 2019, when mortar shelling from across the LOC affected several areas. “After the recent tensions along the border and LoC, for several days the school remained closed; it is only now that full class work has begun,” she said.