Thirteen years ago, in the border village of Jhumiyaan Gujraan situated near the Sialkot working boundary, Fehmida Kausar lost her husband to the unprovoked firing of India’s Border Security Force (BSF).

“That night I not only lost my husband, I lost all my hopes and dreams,” she says.

Recalling the incident, Kausar says, “The faujis fired all night. My husband’s lifeless body lay there on the floor for hours and by the time the firing stopped, it was too late to move him to a hospital. My children were too young to even know what was happening around us.” A young widow, she struggled to raise her children as a single parent with barely enough means to survive.

Living along the Indo-Pak border, villagers are constantly at risk of coming under Indian fire

Sadly, in 2014 another tragedy befell her. “During the Kashmir floods, River Tawi overflowed and now my land is buried under tonnes of silt.” But it’s the sound of gunfire that seems to be eating her alive. So disturbed is Kausar that she often wonders if death would be preferable to this life.

Death and destruction

“When bullets are being fired on the border, it is the soldiers who answer with their rifles and not the politicians,” said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 8, 2014.

His words came ahead of the assembly elections as the BSF indulged in shooting sprees across the international border, with Pakistani villages on the Sialkot-Jammu front bearing the brunt.

A sharp leader, Modi did his job well: silencing his critics and those questioning the Indo-Pak border skirmishes by calling them shameless and at the same time giving the Indian security forces a free hand to continue violating the November 2003 ceasefire agreement. 

The two nations share a border spanning over 2,897km. Since Partition, three wars have been fought and thousands have been killed. Tensions escalated on the jagged Indo-Pak border in 2002, with both sides practically on the verge of a nuclear war. The 2003 ceasefire aimed at bringing peace and stability in the region. Around the same time, India began constructing a barbed-wire fence to stop smuggling and infiltration.

A BSF watch-tower peeking through the trees, seen from the Pakistani side

Some 125km away from Lahore lies Pakistan’s industrial hub Sialkot, a city famous for its home-grown industrial units producing world class sports goods including footballs and surgical instruments.

A couple of hours away from Sialkot is the India-Pakistan border, often said to be the most dangerous border in the world. Over the past few months, the Indo-Pak working boundary has been in the news. First there was the unprovoked fire by the BSF on Pakistani civilians, with shelling intensifying around Eid. Next up, was the ill-fated flag meeting where two Pakistan Rangers jawans were martyred on the last day of 2014. 

While the daily skirmishes and deaths make it to the media on slow news days, the world remains oblivious to the plight of those living close to the border and those guarding the borders. 

Counting shells

On the way to Joiyaan, a village close to the working boundary in Union Council (UC) Chaprar, it’s the blooming mustard fields that soothe the eyes. One can see public and private schools, basic health units, electricity poles and even cell phone towers, though connectivity is erratic. The road is unpaved, more like a dirt track, but the place seems easily accessible. However this illusion of a placid, quaint village soon gives way to a realisation as to how cut-off the inhabitants are from the mainstream.

Children show the pockmarked walls in their home

“Every evening we go to neighbouring villages which are away from the border to lodge with our relatives. It’s not safe in the night and one never knows when a shell might land on a house,” says Misbah Bibi.

Her pockmarked house is just one of the many homes in the village where broken glass windows and cracked roofs are a reminder of the Indian BSF’s ‘competence’ in guarding India’s border.

“In the past few months, I have lost everything that I kept for my daughters’ dowries,” says Maqsooda Bibi, a resident of Joiyaan; the roof and walls of her home were badly damaged by BSF shelling in October 2014. 

“The shells landed in the courtyard and then exploded one by one. The clothes I made, the things I saved, they are all gone. We love our country but the government must save us from the brutality of the Indians,” she pleaded. 

Her family members and neighbours say that moving to safer spots every night is not an option and nor is selling their farm land.

Though Sialkot district has prime agricultural land which fetches high prices, no one wants to buy the land situated near the border. “The land is fertile but so are the guns of the BSF men. We go to the fields for farming and they fire shots on us. If it were possible, I would sell my land and move away to some peaceful place,” says a villager.

A child holds the remains of a mortar shell

The hovering drones

“Are you looking for the bombs which the Indians fire?” a young boy with bright eyes asked innocently. After hearing an affirmative reply, he and his friends agreed to take us to the spot where the shells landed. Some ran home to fetch the shells which injured them, broke the roofs of their homes and shattered windows.

“The Indians fire shells at us every evening. Our mothers are scared and don’t let us play outside after Asr prayers,” said one kid. As they find the spot and dig out the remains of a shell, they look over their shoulders, mindful of the presence of the rangers personnel, posted at the Tariq Shaheed check post.

A teenage boy tells us not to take photos of the check post or the border. “A few days ago, someone took a few pics and he was roughed up,” he says.

Joiyaan is frequently shelled, the prime target being a Rangers building adjscent to the village.

“At times, a toy helicopter comes and goes round and round. The same night, the BSF shells us,” a villager says. He is most likely talking about surveillance drones.

A young man explains what the villager is trying to say. “We have often noticed that the flying object hovers around homes. If most people are there in the village and a drone cam is spotted, there is strong shelling the same night. Now even the kids know that a drone is flying and warn us.”

Mohammad Lateef lost his left leg last year after unprovoked shelling by India’s BSF

Limbs lost to a bombshell 

In Bajra Garhi village lives the elderly cobbler Baba Mohammad Lateef. Frail but in high spirits, all that the wheel-chair bound Lateef wants is a prosthetic limb that will allow him to relieve himself without help from someone. 

“I lost my leg last year in August when the Indians shelled. I was on my way to offer Fajr prayers when the shells started falling. Life is not the same since my leg was chopped off,” he said. Villagers say that ‘it is a miracle that Lateef is alive’.

When asked if he was offered compensation or further treatment after the amputation, Lateef says, “No. A neighbour of mine was killed in shelling and his family was offered compensation. I am not asking for money, all I want is an artificial leg which will help me move around.”

In the same village lives Zaigham Abbas, a young man whose father embraced martyrdom in August. With the memory of his father’s death still painful, he says that Indian shelling must stop and human life be protected.

Perched on a charpoy in the small courtyard of the two-roomed mud house, his mother weeps silently, saying that the compensation they received will never fill the void her husband’s death left. 

Bajra Garhi, along with Umeraanwali, Harpal, Mairajkey and Charwah sectors, came under heavy gun fire and shelling on Jan 30. While the residents moved out to safer locations the next day, they left their properties and cattle behind.

According to data shared by Pakistan Rangers, between 2011 and 2014 alone, 81 villages in the Chaprar / Bajwat Sector, Mearajkey / Pasrur Sector and Shakargarh Sector came under Indian fire.

‘We send them life, they send us death’

In Jhumiyaan Sulheria, another border village, a BSF check post is barely 300m away from most homes. The nearby fields, more closer to the ‘border’, offer the BSF soldiers a clear view of the inhabitants. Locals say the Indian forces occupied the land of their forefathers and erected the post.

Ensuring that their presence does not go unnoticed by the ‘visitors’, the BSF jawans at the post raise their guns in the air, signalling, as terrified villagers moved us away.

A Rangers jawan told us that guarding the borders is their job but asked why the world is blind to what the BSF does.

“So many times, Indians have mistakenly crossed into the Pakistani side. We fed them, treated them nicely and handed them back. But look at what the Indians do. We send them life, they send us death,” he says, alluding at the flag meeting when Indian soldiers killed Pakistan Rangers’ Naik Riaz Shakar and Lance Naik Safdar in Shakargarh sector.

A lower level tactical discussion, a flag meeting is aimed at defusing tension on the line of control, with lower level officers taking decisions that affect local parameters. The meetings have no bearing on wider diplomatic relations. However, the Dec 31 attack by BSF soldiers on Pakistan Rangers jawans was shocking; the gun-fire lasted for over five hours.

Indian media, quoting BSF Inspector General for Jammu region Rakesh Sharma, said that four Pakistani soldiers were killed along the international border in Samba sector. “We retaliated effectively. As Pakistani Rangers suffered casualties, they waved white flags, asking BSF to stop the firing so that they could lift the bodies of the dead men. We stopped the firing after their request,” Sharma was quoted as saying.

Talking to Dawn, Rangers spokesman says, “We never initiate conflict. It’s always the BSF that starts shelling, often at unarmed civilian population. We only retaliate.”

But civilians say ‘retaliation’ is not enough. “The government needs to wake up and help us. We want to be relocated, shifted to safer spots and this is not possible unless the government considers our lives at risk,” says a female resident of a border village.

As dusk sets in, an uneasy calm descends on the border villages, with their inhabitants knowing well that living on the first line of defence, they will likely be the very first casualty.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 15th, 2015

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