“I don’t think I can go through watching this house go down again,” said 38-year-old Babar, exhausted after two sleepless nights when landed dangerously close to his home at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
It wasn’t just the sleepless nights, but also the “memories of the past” that kept him on edge. He recalled the shelling in 1999, which reduced his house to rubble. Then, in the earthquake of 2005, the house went down again.
Thursday night saw an intense bout of artillery firing from across the Line of Control. “We had just sat down to eat when the siren rang out. We left everything as it was and ran to the neighbours’ bunker,” he said.
The shelling left a woman dead, four civilians injured and several houses damaged in Uri.
Since the 2003 ceasefire, reiterated in February 2021, residents of the cluster of villages in the Uri area had moved on from a life of building and upkeep of bunkers. “Every house had a bunker in the backyard. Last night has revived memories of the craters in the paddy fields that we saw during war when we were young,” Babar said.
A neighbour, who works in the police force, constructed a basement at his house about seven months ago. A basement is an unlikely feature in a Kashmiri house, given that foundations are prepared keeping the seismic zone in mind and the houses are geared for harsh winters. “He had been posted at the border some distance away, so he had the sense to prepare the basement as a bunker,” Babar said.
Last night, the basement provided refuge to at least 12 people from the neighbourhood. Even inside the concrete structure, the sound from the blasts was so loud that it felt like “staring down the barrel of the gun”, he added.
Javed Ahmad, working at the control room set up by the administration in Uri town, said that on Thursday, they advised residents to evacuate. But not many people were prepared to leave their homes.
However, on Friday, after a night of intense shelling, nearly 2,000 people were evacuated from Uri. “More than 90% of Uri is now empty,” he said.
Nargis Bashir, 45, was leaving the Razarwani area of Uri tehsil when shrapnel cut through the roof of her car and hit her. She died on her way to the hospital. Three others were injured.
Mohammad Muneer Mir, a teacher at Uri Higher Secondary School, said that on the first night, several families were moved to the school. “However, while the building is strong, the roof is made of pre-fabricated material and the decision has since been revisited,” he said.
As shelling grew closer and louder on Thursday night, he pushed through the doors of the old bunker behind the house. “It is about 8×14 feet, and we squeezed in about 32 people. We did not turn anyone away, how could we? Everyone was just trying to get through the night,” Mir said.
From villages as far as 19 km from Uri, residents reported shelling. In Mohra, some residents took shelter in an old tunnel. “We did not leave until 6 am, when the sound receded,” said local resident Aamir Alam.
On Friday, L-G visited Uri to assess the damage. CM Omar Abdullah rushed to to take stock of the situation and meet displaced families.
The L-G visited the villages of Lagama and Gingal in Uri, where he met local residents.
Meanwhile, the road out of Uri, along which the Karwan-e-Aman bus service once ran, is witnessing another exodus of locals.
