08-05-2025
Ghost villages line LoC as relentless shelling forces occupants to abandon homes
'When your mind is at peace, you care about your home. Shells are raining down on us. All that matters now is saving our families and running away,' Tahir Zaman, a 34-year-old Batpora local, told ThePrint.
The small village, close to the LoC and prone to impact during ceasefire violations, now stands deserted and defaced. Its streets remain empty and lined by homes abandoned by their owners or burnt down after being hit by shells.
New Delhi: Batpora in Karnah tehsil of Kupwara district is now a ghost village. Only 10 km away from the Line of Control (LoC), Batpora has been witnessing continuous, heavy shelling over the last two days, forcing people to leave their homes, unsure when or whether they will be able to return.
Locals first woke up to their new reality Wednesday night when noises from the LoC broke the silence. Habituated to such noises, Zaman kept sleeping peacefully till the noises had become louder. Stepping outside, he saw people rushing to find safe spaces. With their homes suddenly unsafe, they had nowhere to go.
On the fateful night of 7 May, at least five houses, five shops, and several vehicles were destroyed, right in front of Zaman. All at once, two of his brothers, who lived nearby, had lost their homes, which they had built over the last several years.
Soon, all the locals had realised they needed to leave the village. Like the others, Zaman rushed his family of nine outside. As sunlight broke over the horizon, the family left Batpora for the Kupwara Degree College, which, they knew, would be a safe space.
The heavy shelling in Kashmir over the past two days has affected parts of Kupwara, Poonch, where it killed several people, and Uri. Several people had tried to shelter in their villages but failed since bunkers were too few and far between. Displaced, most are confined to government schools and college buildings now.
'Only twenty percent of the [displaced] people have alternative properties. Over the years, they have managed to buy properties in Kupwara town or other places such as Srinagar. However, the remaining 80 percent are daily wagers. The only safe spaces for them are bunkers,' Zaman said, adding that the villages do not have enough bunkers for all locals. 'People are just roaming here and there now, lost.'
On Wednesday, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah held an emergency review meeting with his officials on the border areas. He has assured people that attempts would be made to provide shelter for them and help them return to their homes.
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Normalcy, 'just a hope'
For Batpora people, moving out of their village has been difficult, Zaman said. Many, like him, have grown up amid border tensions threatening their lives daily. Despite that, over the last several years, locals have bought small pieces of land and slowly built houses, spending all their investments. 'No longer is it easy to leave all that behind and start afresh. Generations of our families have lived here,' Zaman said.
Herded into government buildings, the Batpora people are left with no proper food and remain sleepless. Zaman said most only see despair in their future. 'We want normalcy, but it is just a hope. We do not, for sure, know whether it will ever be our reality.'
Nearly 95 km from Kupwara, lies another 'unfortunate' village, Garkote in Uri. On the night of 7 May, Shabir Ahmed, a 40-year-old local, woke up to his phone ringing continuously. Living in a rented accommodation in Srinagar, Ahmed was getting calls from his family. While his family moved out of Garkote village just in time, the poorer families, he said, failed to find any place to move and remained behind, hoping to come out safe at the end of the India-Pakistan tensions.
In his village, people have vacated at least 50 houses, Ahmed told ThePrint. 'We are scared for the safety of our homes. We hope that we survive this,' Ahmed said, adding that while, unlike in Kupwara, the heavy shelling in his village stopped on the Wednesday night, fears and news of possible attacks have left people too scared to return to their homes.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has pledged to retaliate after India struck the country with missiles on the morning of 7 May.
'Homes can, again, be built. But lives can not,' Ahmed said.
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'Felt like a battlefield'
One of the worst-hit villages was Dingla in Poonch. The heavy shelling killed at least 15, including a woman and three children, and left 45 injured in Dingla, a village with a population of more than 3,000, according to official Army sources.
The heavy shelling began around 1 am on the night of 7 May. In some time, houses started shaking or were close to crumbling, Waqar, a 33-year-old local, told ThePrint.
'In our attempts to distract children from the noise of heavy shelling, we put cotton balls in their ears or wrapped their heads in clothes. Kids could not stop crying. Eventually, we made them lie under our beds. We thought the end was near,' Waqar said.
By Thursday morning, the situation had cooled down. So, along with his family, Waqar moved to a school in Poonch town, where the family is now. There are at least 20 other families in the cramped school.
The border surrounds his house on three sides, said Waqar. 'The shells hit us from the North and the West,' he said, adding that a shell landed right at his feet. But, luckily enough, the area outside his house is a wetland, so it did not explode and result in a fire.
However, he said that a similar incident killed the twin children of a woman in his neighbouring village and critically injured her husband, who is now in a hospital.
Waqar said the heavy shelling partially damaged at least 300 houses in his village. 'Some of these houses belong to those who moved to our village from militancy-prone areas for safety. They are again homeless.'
The situation, however, could have been controlled, according to Waqar. 'We witnessed hell in one night. It (his village) felt like nearly a battlefield,' Waqar said.
Waqar left his home unlocked in his hurry to save his family. However, he remains more worried about his pet dog and cattle; he left them behind in the emergency. 'I just want to return home to feed those poor animals at least once,' he said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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