'Line through our hearts': A Kashmir village, 75 years after partition

Article author:

Reuters

Fayaz Bukhari and Gibran Naiyyar pessimum

TEETWAL — The thundering Himalayan River and one of the world'southward most militarized borders straddles the mountain range betwixt India and India. separates the Khokar family unit of Kashmir. Pakistan – Greatest rival to Britain afterwards gaining independence 75 years agone.

Abdul Rashid Khokhar lives in his Teetwal village on the Indian side.

Beyond the rapids of the Neelum River, besides known as the Kishanganga, his nephews Javed Iqbal Kokar and Munir Hussein Kokar run a small store in the hamlet of Cirehana, Pakistan. there is

Above them rose tall green mountains on either side, from which the armed forces of their nuclear-armed neighbors fired mortars, shells, and small artillery for decades. It has been raining intermittently for a long time.

Since early 2021, the Line of Command (LOC), a 740 km (460 mi) de facto border that divides Kashmir into two he said, will be closed after the ceasefire agreement between Republic of india was renewed. It's nearly quiet. and Pakistan.

After years of bombing and destruction in this part of Kashmir, farmers have returned to abandoned fields and orchards, markets take boomed, minor businesses have expanded, and schools have been operating normally. Residents of both sides said they had returned to their lives.

Only broken diplomatic ties between India and Pakistan, which have fought ii of his three wars over Kashmir, continue to bandage a shadow over the region.

India and Pakistan have no active merchandise ties, and diplomatic missions in both countries downgraded. In that location are very express visas that tin be visited from either side.

Kashmir'due south postcard-perfect valleys and mountains are split betwixt Pakistani and Indian sectors, with Cathay controlling parts of the northern region.

The narrow rope bridge connecting Teethwar and Cirehana is blocked on both sides with barbed wire and has non been allowed to be crossed since 2018. It straddles the LOC.

"The line runs through our hearts," said Kokar, his 73-year-old village council head of Teethwal, referring to the LOC.

"I can see my relatives over in that location, merely not being able to meet and talk to them is very traumatic."

August 14 And at midnight on the 15th, the Kohars are amongst the millions of families that take been torn autonomously after colonial India was split into the independent states of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. 1947.

More than a meg dead

Britain's jerky sectionalization of the subcontinent has sparked mass migration, marred by bloodshed and violence. about their organized religion.

Many independent estimates put more than than one million people expressionless in religious riots.

Massacres struck Teethwar during the partitioning, but more devastation followed during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, which eventually led to the establishment of the LOC, he said. said.

By the 1990s, parts of the predominantly Hindu state of Jammu and Kashmir, the merely Muslim-bulk country in the land, were embroiled in total-diddled riots. , New Delhi defendant Islamic republic of pakistan. Encourage.

Islamabad denied the allegations, saying information technology was merely providing diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris seeking cocky-conclusion.

Pakistan has as well defendant Republic of india of human rights abuses in areas controlled past Kashmir, which New Delhi has rejected.

In 2019, Indian Prime Government minister Narendra Modi reorganized Jammu and Kashmir into his 2 federally administered provinces, angering Pakistan and renewing tensions.

On the Pakistani side of the Neelum River, Kokar's nephew Javed Iqbal Kokar remembers when he could not switch on the darkest lights in his home in Cirehana. said there is. exist bombarded.

The constant artillery and mortar fire of the time forced the family to motion the elders and most of the children away from the border and his 40 km from the relatively safe city of Muzaffarabad. I was forced to move to a remote location. (25 miles) away in Pakistan, he said.

"They're still at that place because y'all never know what's going to happen and information technology'southward difficult to get them out," said the 55-year-onetime adult female.

'Information technology'South BEEN 75 YEARS'

On a warm afternoon this week, his blood brother Mounir his Hussein his Kokar stands outside a small-scale store, Indians across the LOC Overlooking the settlement, I handed out bright cones. Green and white ice cream in the colors of the Pakistani flag.

For years, business activity in the area had been about completely stagnant, and constant clashes had led to a slight reduction in traffic on the roads forth the Neelam River, he said. said.

With tourists returning since the ceasefire in 2021, the Khokhar brothers have expanded their business and launched two new stores.

"Ice cream is fine," said the 32-year-one-time, and offered him a cone.

There is no prison cell phone service in Chilehana, and the Kokar brothers said they had not spoken to relatives across the border in years. His brother said the concluding fourth dimension he visited the Indian side was in 2012.

"Strange," he said.

There are no tourists in Teetowar, India, but residents of the once-bustling boondocks and surrounding settlements say they are also benefiting from the abeyance of hostilities.

In Dildar, a village adjacent to Teetwal, local principal Aftab Ahmad Khawaja said he forced 550 of his students into a secure room during cross-border shootings.

"After the shelling, only 25 pct of the students were in schoolhouse," he said, Mr Khawaja, 33.

But many still count the casualties of the fighting that engulfed the region.

On the night of September 19, 2020, Nasulena in her Shaht village, Gunde, Republic of india, was the sole breadwinner of her family of four when a shell landed in the courtyard of her Ms. Begum home. killed her husband.

"In hostilities and shelling, I was robbed of everything," said Begum, 35, who now supports ii daughters and her i son. I was.

Forth Neelam, Pakistan, Umar Mughal hopes peace volition last. One of his reasons is that it might requite him the opportunity to expand a small-scale restaurant with a sweeping view of the Indian side.

"It's been 75 years," said the 26-year-old Mughal.

"Any it is, we need some kind of long-term solution for Kashmir. Wait some other 75 years."

(Fayaz Bukhari of Teetwal and Chilehana Reporting past Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam; additional reporting by Abu Arqam Naqash of Chilehana; writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; editing past Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: https://theworldnews.net/ca-news/line-through-our-hearts-a-kashmir-village-75-years-after-partition

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