Amid fears of unexploded shells & ceasefire violations, Uri hopes for normalcy
'It will be a waste of money to renovate this house now because what all can we fix? It cannot sustain any pressure amid this uncertainty,' he says.
Two days later, Ashraf, a resident of Bandi village, which falls within five kilometres of the Line of Control with Pakistan, takes stock of the damage at his shelled house. He tries to salvage the belongings from his house, which had shattered windows, cracked walls and perforated the tin roof.
Uri: Mohammad Ashraf, 45, and his son-in-law Ishfaq Ahmed, rushed to shelter under their porch when they heard a siren at 5 am on 10 May. Within 10 minutes, a shell fell near their house and wrecked it.
Life in Uri town and neighbouring villages seems to have come to a halt because of the incessant shelling by Pakistan after India's launched Operation Sindoor at terror camps and centres in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on 7 May. Areas along the Line of Control have borne the brunt of the flare-up.
Although a ceasefire seems to be in place at present, most people have left Uri and neighbouring villages to seek refuge with relatives in Baramulla and other towns. Those without relatives have chosen to shelter at Govt. Degree College Baramulla.
Restaurants, grocery shops, farming and other activities are on hold. 'We have sent our women and children to Baramulla to my in-laws so that we don't have to think about their safety. We came here to take stock of the house, which is there but not there actually,' says 30-year-old Ishfaq Ahmed.
Also Read: A Poonch woman's 13-yr-old twins died 5 mins apart. She hides their deaths to keep their father alive
Residents seek permanent ceasefire
Maqbool Bandey, a resident of Uri, says he wants both India and Pakistan to understand that local people are eager to return to normal life without the threat of attacks. 'It is easy to say temporary migration, but in the absence of your business, farms, home, etc. I can't even visit my kitchen garden because of the fear of shells.'
Bandey stayed in the village during the nights of 8 May to 10 May, taking shelter in a mosque with three others, and later moved to Degree College Uri on 11 May.
'We want Kashmir to be like any other aspiring part of the world with developments, jobs, tourism and, most importantly, normalcy,' says another resident.
In Lagama, 10 km from Uri's main market, Sajjad's grocery shop was hit with a shell on the night of 8 May.
Burnt musk melons, onions, bottles of kiwi and orange juice, a burnt weighing machine and tin sheets lay strewn in debris.
'At 11 pm on 8 May, Pakistan started shelling towards Uri, and India also retaliated. By 12 at night, I got to know about a fire incident in my shop, but I couldn't confirm because of continuous shelling. When we got up in the morning, we got to know we had lost everything,' said Sajjad.
He said business in Uri depends on a permanent ceasefire. 'Even if we start our business from zero again, it will get shelled in months or years. We don't feel like investing here.'
The picturesque town of Uri, surrounded by pine-covered mountains, was among the first areas attacked by Pakistani tribal forces during the 1947 invasion. Indian troops recaptured it days later. The town has since remained a flashpoint in every chapter of the India-Pakistan conflict.
On 11 May, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti visited the town and tried to console shopkeepers. 'There should be better facilities here,' one shopkeeper told her.
'To hell with bunkers. Will you live in a bunker for your whole life? You should say, 'Let there be peace, and we don't need bunkers',' said Mehbooba.
Uri's National Conference MLA, Sajad Shafi, tells ThePrint that hundreds of houses have been damaged because of the shelling.
'We have suffered right from the 1947, 1965 and 1971 wars and the 1998 shellings, and for the last 35 years. Whenever there is hostility between two countries, it is the people on the border who suffer the most. We have lost lives, houses and agricultural lands,' says Shafi.
'This should be a permanent ceasefire. We want to live like the people of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Islamabad and Karachi.'
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Jaishankar meets French President Macron
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday met President Emmanuel Macron here and thanked him for France's strong message of support in the fight against terrorism. Jaishankar is on a visit to Europe to boost bilateral ties and reaffirm India's policy of zero-tolerance against terrorism , especially in the wake of April 22 Pahalgam terror attack. "Honoured to call on President @EmmanuelMacron of France. Conveyed greetings of PM @narendramodi. Thanked him for France's strong message of support in the fight against terrorism," Jaishankar said in a post on X after the meeting. "Our discussions reflected the trust, comfort and ambition of our Strategic Partnership," he added. Jaishankar was in Brussels on Wednesday where he met top European Union leaders and discussed ways to further strengthen the EU-India strategic partnership. Live Events The April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives prompted India to carry out precision strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7.
India.com
an hour ago
- India.com
India is not imposing a trade ban on Pakistan supporter Turkey due to..., even Erdogan will be unaware of this reason
India is not imposing a trade ban on Pakistan supporter Turkey due to..., even Erdogan will be unaware of this reason Even after Turkey openly supported Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, India has not taken any drastic step against the foe country. In fact, the government has adopted a very soft stance regarding trade. The reason for this is that India sells more goods to Turkey than it buys from it. In this way, India earns a profit of 2.73 billion dollars every year. When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not only made statements in favour of Pakistan but also sent drones, every Indian was so angry that demands started rising to stop everything from tourism to trade with Turkey. Why is India not banning trade with Turkey? According to the report of The Indian Express, an official said that the government has received many applications demanding a ban on the import of goods from Turkey. He said that apple producers of Himachal Pradesh and marble traders of Udaipur have demanded a ban on importing goods from Turkey, but India has a trade surplus with Turkey, that is, India sells more goods to Turkey than it buys from there. The official said that if trade with Turkey was banned, it would be a strong geopolitical message, but it would depend on how far you want to take it. What does India-Turkey trade in? Another reason for continuing trade with Turkey is that the trade surplus includes industrial exports. Such as engineering goods, electronics, organic-inorganic chemicals, whose export has increased significantly in the last five years. On the other hand, if we talk about Turkey, India mainly imports fruits, dry fruits, gold and marble from it. However, apple traders and marble traders of Udaipur, angry with Turkey for supporting Pakistan during Operation Sindoor , had demanded a ban on imports from Turkey. In this regard, he had also written a letter to the Prime Minister's Office. In the last few years, Turkey had also increased the import of petroleum products, but in the financial year 2025, it saw a decline. How much did India and Turkey trade last year? According to official figures, Turkey imported goods worth $2.99 billion to India last year, out of which fruits and dry fruits worth $107.12 million were purchased. At the same time, gold worth $270.83 million was purchased in the financial year 2025, which was more than in 2024. In 2024, gold worth $104.56 million came from Turkey to India. Talking about India, exports worth $5.72 billion were made to Turkey in the financial year 2025, out of which 50 percent i.e. $3 billion was engineering exports. Micro, Small Medium Enterprises (MSME) exports accounted for 35-40 percent. According to this, India has sold more goods worth $2.73 billion than Turkey.
NDTV
an hour ago
- NDTV
Is This How India Will 'Dehyphenate' Itself From Pakistan?
"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on," said Yossarian, the 'hero' of Joseph Heller's 1961 cult classic Catch-22. This absurdly dark and hilarious novel, set during the Second World War, contains some of the most astute observations on war and peace, a theme for our times. Or all times. Apart from one's own commanders, like Colonel Cathcart of Catch-22, the enemy could also be suboptimal actions driven by fallacious estimations of self. While our armed forces, as commanded, demonstrated their professionalism and precision, the same has been seen as lacking from other quarters in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor. Despite India's consistent attempts at keeping the Kashmir issue out of the arena of international interference, Pakistan has doubled down on its efforts to the contrary and achieved at least some degree of success. India, regrettably, has also got 're-hyphenated' with Pakistan despite our government's forceful iterations that the victims and perpetrators of terrorism cannot be treated at par by the international community. Pak Is No Match The irony of the current situation is that India may have played some part in bringing this rehyphenation upon itself. Rather than setting the paradigm, India is seen as playing catch-up in its diplomatic oeuvre. Immediately after the high offices of the Pakistani government, including Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, embarked on their international mission to convince the world about India's alleged aggression, seven all-party committees were dispatched by India to different parts of the world. We are yet to see what such delegations have achieved for the long run, apart from generating newsy moments. As the world's fourth-largest economy, India has a stature that Pakistan can only aspire to achieve. Sharif's statement about India being more wary of the cost of war than Pakistan because the latter is still in a struggling phase is darkly humorous and unintentionally ingenious. It doesn't behove a superpower like India to be following Pakistan's diplomatic footsteps. The soon-to-retire chief of the Florida-based United States Central Command, General Michael E. Kurilla, has recently called Pakistan a "phenomenal partner" whose value "will only increase as the Taliban continues to face security challenges within its borders". President Donald Trump, too, has been underscoring how the US values its "beautiful" relationship with both India and Pakistan, which have "great" leaders. Rather than dismissing this 'both-siding' as classic Trump balderdash, India should devise a robust plan to offset Pakistan's geopolitical arm-twisting of the West. Pak's Sneaky Ways The Afghanistan-Pakistan hyphenation is what has been driving the West's response to Islamabad's backing of the terror outfits in Kashmir and other parts of India. Pakistan has managed to convince the West, especially the US, of its indispensable status in eliminating actors that pose a direct threat to people and property in the Global North. India's renewed engagement with the Taliban, short of recognising them, has only limited potential to counter Pakistan's perceived value as a partner of the West to counter terrorist threats originating from Central and South Asia. The spectre of ISIS-K looms large on any Western attempt at holding Pakistan responsible for terror activities in India. Pakistan has utilised multilateral platforms, such as the UN, to its utmost benefit. Currently, as a non-permanent member of the UNSC, Pakistan serves as the Chair of the 1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee, Vice Chair of the 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee, and Co-Chair of two informal working groups. It is also set to become the rotational president of the UNSC in July. While these positions do not hold any substantive powers, Pakistan can be expected to initiate meetings and debates to internationalise the Kashmir issue. The Kashmir Question India may have brushed these concerns away in the past, upholding its policy of keeping Kashmir as an internal matter, but it will appear a little hypocritical now. Once you reach out to the world with an aim to share your side of the story, you cannot accuse the other party of doing the same. There has been a spirit of tentativeness with which multilateral platforms have treated India-Pakistan tensions. A large number of nations are not even aware of Kashmir and the eight-decade-long dispute over it. All they have perhaps seen is a half-hearted inscription on UN maps showing the border between the two countries. More importantly, India can no longer claim that it does not care for the "opinion" of the international community, particularly the US, when it was a foreign commander in chief of the armed forces who "announced" - however unwarrantedly - the ceasefire or the "pause" during Operation Sindoor. Classical Greek playwright and master of comedies Aristophanes said, "Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war; and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties". While it may be important to learn from Pakistan the art of conning everyone all the time, India must continue to act like the regional power and global arbiter that it posits itself as.
