Pak shelling: Villages in J&K turn ghost towns as thousands forced to leave homes
Pak shelling: Villages in J&K turn into ghost towns, 1,00,000 people leave
Endless Pakistan shelling for a week now has driven 1,00,000 people from their homes in Jammu and Kashmir. The normal life has been disrupted to the extent that villages have turned into ghost towns.
A 19-year-old is alone at home. On Tuesday evening, her father was curing a newly built boundary wall when a mortar shell landed in the compound of their house, injuring him, her mother and brother.
Soonam Kundal is busy gathering her belongings at her home in Keso village, a few kilometers from the border. A 19-year-old is alone at home. On Tuesday evening, her father was curing a newly built boundary wall when a mortar shell landed in the compound of their house, injuring him, her mother and brother.
“My family has been shifted to government medical college hospital in Jammu,” says Kundal, who escaped unhurt as she was inside.
Like Kundal, most of the people forced out of their homes in border villages of Jammu, Kathua and Samba districts have chosen to live with relatives. A village of 1,500, Keso is all but abandoned.
Fear dominates as Pakistani soldiers have targeted villages and BSF posts all along the 198km-long border. In the last one week, four people have died and 25 injured in Ramgarh alone.
A retried soldier, 61-year-old Des Raj blames the government for the situation. “We have experienced firing from across for decades but the intensity has increased ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre,” he says. Raj was to join his family at a relief camp in the evening.
-PTC News
