As conflict rages along LoC,residents rue another displacement

For 87-year-old Suram Chand, life in Hamirpur village along the LoC has been a tale of continuous displacement, having borne testimony to worst Indo-Pak wars and hostilities which have driven him out of his home countless times.
Today's blistering mortar attacks by Pakistani troops have forced the octogenarian to yet again abandon his residence in Pallanwala sector along the Line of Control (LoC) and move to a higher secondary school in Khour, a camp set up by the state government to house border migrants.
The frail and wrinkled Chand says migration is nothing new to him as he has "lost count" of the number of times he and his family had to shift to camps due to hostilities between the two nations.

Having lived through times when there was no Line of Control between the two sides and people were free to move from one place to another, Chand says that since the day Pakistan was created, problems have cropped up for the border residents.
"Before 1947 there was no concept of border or LoC, this all used to be a one big place. But post-1947, things have turned sour for us. In one night we all became border residents and victims to the hostilities from across the border," he says.
"We have lost the count of the number of times we had to leave our village and migrate to safer locations. This time its been eight days since we were asked to vacate our houses and shift to this place," he says.

The government school in the area has become home for several hundred residents of four villages who have been shifted there, as tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours spiked following the Army's surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Pointing to an injury mark caused by a mortar shell fired from across the border a few years ago, 70-year-old Gitam Singh, who retired from the army after serving for 20 years, expressed anger over hardships he and several other border residents face.
"Lakhs of border residents like us are facing these hardships due to the disease called Pakistan, this disease needs to be eradicated once and for all, only then peace can prevail in the area. I was in my field few years ago when a mortar filed by the Pakistan army landed near me and I was injured," Singh said.

With over 200 families, Hamirpur is among the biggest villages in this border belt, which now bears a deserted look due to shelling and firing from across the border.
"Our fields are on the other side of the border fence so our crop has almost died due to lack of irrigation. The Army is not allowing us to cross the fence as they fear that Pakistani army might target us," said Tarsem Lal (44), another resident of the village.
A senior army officer in the area, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said for the army, the priority was to make sure that the civilian population was safe.

"We keep on visiting their camps to make sure that all their requirements are met, for us the priority is the safety of civilians as they became the easy target of the Pakistani fire," the officer said.