The elderly Ghulam Hussain, draped in woollen shawl, is collecting broken pieces of wooden window sill from his mud courtyard. His frightened wife and daughter-in-law are placing some household items in order, since a few days ago they had left in panic.

He gestures at a small crater in the courtyard and explains: “Unprovoked mortar shelling by Indian forces from across the Sialkot working boundary wreaked havoc in my village, forcing everybody to flee.”

The residents of Tahir Joiaan village, which is quite close to the Sialkot working boundary, have come under direct range of Indian machine gun firing and mortar shelling. Indian forces are being accused of violating the ceasefire. It was midnight on Oct 20-21 when Indian forces started violating the ceasefire and opened fire after a 14-month lull; they used light and heavy machine guns and fired mortar shells at the sleeping villagers.

Though the firing and shelling are not new for the villagers, they fled their homes and took refuge in Raja Harpal village, about two kilometres away. “We have been rendered homeless for the past two weeks,” says Amanat Ali, whose grandchildren are collecting mortar shell fans and splinters that are scattered around their courtyard.

Tahir Joiaan, is a densely populated village surrounded by lush green fertile fields near the Sialkot working boundary that zigzags some 123km from Chamb Jorrian, Gujrat, to Bara Bhai Masroor, Narowal. The Indian forces continued carrying out ceasefire violations from Oct 21 to Nov 3. Now the houses, though well-constructed, have broken walls and are pockmarked with craters. The bazaars are deserted.

While the Indian forces’ shelling stopped by the middle of last week, fearful residents did not return. “We can’t trust India,” says factory worker Shakeel Ahmad. “Everybody wants to live in his own home but we fear India will re-open fire and cause casualties.”

People started returning home on Sunday. “The Indian guns have been silent for the past four days, and living in the open fields without anything to eat felt tougher,” says Muhammad Mahmood. “Our paddy crops are ready to be harvested”.

Sixty-five-year old Mahmood tells me that the women are hastily cooking: “We will have to leave our homes in the evening to avoid the fear of firing and shelling during the night.”

In another house, Khursheed Bibi is putting her household in order and dolefully trying to fix the door of a new fridge. “A mortar shell that landed in our courtyard damaged many items,” she says, “including this fridge that my daughter-in-law brought in her dowry.”

In the narrow but brick-lined streets of this village, most main gates and doors are locked. “At the most, some 35 per cent families have dared return home,” says Shakeel. “All the schools situated across the Sialkot district border area have been closed since the first ceasefire violation on Oct 21.”

With the stink of gunpowder still in the air, children are running around picking up mortar shell fans and other remains. They happily escort media persons to show the damage. Thick concrete lintels have been torn apart and residents worry whether their well-built homes can still provide safety against Indian aggression. “A wave of fear runs through me whenever we hear a gunshot or the sound of a bomb,” says a Class-IV student.

Teenager Ali Arbab has a scar on the right side of his head, caused by a mortar splinter. He explains that along with his family and cattle, he left home soon after hearing gunshots on Oct 21; the family subsequently lived in an open area in Raja Harpal village. “It was early morning on Oct 27 when a mortar shell reached us and exploded underneath the buffalo, tearing it apart,” he says. “It was a horrible sight. A few splinters injured my five family members.” All of them were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital and eventually discharged after a couple of days.

“The Indian army has increased the range of its mortar shelling and now everyone, including those in Raja Harpal village, are panicked about moving further back to a safer distance,” says a young man named Naveed.

It has been reported that eight people have been killed and 56 injured during recent ceasefire violations.

Emotions are running high here now, as people are complaining about the government’s apathy towards displaced persons. “No government representative, including powerful local politicians such as Khawaja Asif, Ahsan Iqbal and Zahid Hamid, has even come to console the displaced families,” bursts out factory worker Shakeel. “Forget any talk of compensation.”

All the villagers are unanimous in saying that India should be compelled to observe the ceasefire in letter and in spirit so that they can live in the comfort of their homes. Otherwise, they say, the government and the philanthropists should help develop new localities to shift the residents of villages affected along the working boundary.

Published in Dawn November 8th, 2016