Dont hear azaan from across border: Villagers Ravi Krishnan Khajuria Lalyal Camp, “Now, we no longer hear their azaan. They have vacated their villages,” says Toshi Devi, a middle-aged woman of this village that was pounded by the Pakistan Rangers with mortars recently. Four members of a family, including two women and two minor children, were injured in the attack. Lalyal Camp is in the Kanachak sector of Jammu district. “Before the flare-up, we could see them working in the fields on the other side of the border. We could guess the time by hearing their azaan from the mosques. Neither do we see them in the fields, nor do we hear their azaan now,” says Toshi Devi. “It seems that they are planning something more dangerous. We are planning to move to safe places with our children”, she adds. This village, which has 120 households with a population of 500, has its roots in Chamb, now in Pakistan. “We were uprooted from Chamb in 1947, 1965 and 1971. In 1947 and 1965, we returned to Chamb and started afresh, but settled down here after the 1971 war. That is why this place is called Lalyal Camp. Now, we fear another displacement”, she says. “Pakistan has evicted villagers from at least 20 villages on their side opposite Garkhal to Chinore Farm, a stretch of approximately 15 km on the international border,” says 60-year-old Sewa Ram, an ex-serviceman. “Now, we do not see their tractors in the fields,” he says. He names some villages opposite Lalyal Camp like Kundal, Looni, Chang, Boor and Tamana that have been vacated by the Pakistan Rangers. Another woman Shankuntla Devi says, “We cannot see more bloodbath and death of our children. It will be kind on the part of the governments on both sides to shift us to safer places and then settle scores once and for all.” Septuagenarian Rakkhi Devi is a distraught woman as her daughters-in-law Kamlesh Devi (35) and Anju Sharma (30) and grandchildren Happy (5) and Isha (7) were injured in a recent mortar explosion. She recalls how trigger-happy Pakistan Rangers heaped misery on her family 14 years back. “In 1999, during the Kargil war, a bullet fired from across the border hit my husband Jalla Ram on the head while he was working in the fields. Though he survived, he lost his mental balance,” she says.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 01:56:57 +0000
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