Fierce Indo-Pak Shelling Frighten Residents in Uri

May 20, 2002

Residents of this Kashmir border township were praying for peace on Monday after raging artillery battles between Indian and Pakistani troops over the weekend left them shell-shocked and fearing an outbreak of war.

Four days of shelling across the border have left two people dead and 20 injured in Kashmir.

One of the dead and eight of the injured came from the town of Uri and surrounding villages, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar.

The bustling town, nestled in the mountains and situated on the edges of the river Jehlum, which flows into the Pakistani side of Kashmir, is located on the Line of Control (LoC) -- the de factor border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Panic gripped the area on Saturday morning when the Pakistani shells began landing.

Residents say they are slowly growing used to cross-border exchanges between the armies of the two hostile nuclear neighbours, but the looming fear of war keeps them awake nights.

"We have been living with cross-border exchanges over the past many years now," said Mohammad Nazir who lives in Kamalkote village, one of the worst hit on Saturday.

"But what we fear most is the outbreak of war," he added.

His neighbour Sajjad Ahmed said the village had suffered many deaths during past shelling, but it was war that wrought the worst havoc in the region.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, and border districts have felt the full effects of the violence.

"Even the movement of vehicles during the night sparks fear that war has broken out," Ahmed said.

Soldiers fill the town of Uri, moving about in trucks and jeeps towards the LoC.

The Indian army, backed by the Border Security Force and police, frisked residents and searched local transport vehicles for arms and ammunition in a bid to detect separatist militants, who cross over from the Pakistani zone of Kashmir into Uri.

Tariq Feroze, who lives in nearby Nambla village, said everyone in Uri was praying for peace between India and Pakistan.

"Whether shells land here, or there in Pakistani Kashmir, they kill or hurt a Kashmiri and probably our own relatives," says Feroze, who has many relatives living in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Abdul Aziz of Garkote village, said he had his underground bunker repaired for his family on Wednesday, a day after terrorists attacked a passenger bus and an army cantonment in Jammu killing 35 people, mostly women and children.

"We are back to the old business of shifting the injured to hospitals," said Abdul Rashid Khan, an officer at Uri police station.
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