‘Missiles in skies’: Panic in Indian frontier cities as war clouds gather

Millions of people in cities near the border in India and Indian-administered Kashmir are on edge amid blackouts, explosions

- (Al Jazeera)

Aqib Parray was standing at a local shop near his home in Jammu, in Indian-administered Kashmir, when all the lights went out late in the evening on Thursday, May 8. Loud bangs followed.

Panicked, everyone on the streets started rushing home, 24-year-old Parray said. From the terrace of his home, he said, “I saw that the missiles were scattered in the skies.” Then his internet also went off. “We have never seen Jammu like this.”

Two generations of Indians and Pakistanis have not witnessed a fully fledged war, with blackouts and the threat of missiles raining on them even if they are far from any battle-field. In 1999, the nations fought a war over the icy heights of Kargil, but the conflict was contained.

Now, as India and Pakistan edge closer to a fully fledged war, millions of people on both sides are witnessing scenes unprecedented in their life-times. They include the 750,000 people of Jammu, and millions more in Indian cities that on Thursday evening came under attack, according to the Indian government.

Eight missiles were fired from Pakistan-origin drones towards Jammu and nearby areas of Satwari and Samba, also targeting military stations in Udhampur and Indian Punjab’s Pathankot, said India’s Ministry of Defence. India says they were all brought down with no casualties.

Shortly after, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar denied that the country had targeted any locations in Indian-administered Kashmir or across the international border.

Yet the mounting anxiety across cities in India and Indian-administered Kashmir, close to the frontier with Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, is real. Seventeen days after gunmen killed 26 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam, and two days after India hit at least six Pakistani cities with missiles, the prospect of a war looms over communities close to the border.