Ahead of the peak festival season surrounding Deepawali celebrations, border residents living in the direct line of fire along the International border in RS Pura sector of Jammu frontier are staring at a bleak future.
late Friday evening Pakistani Rangers pounded several forward villages using 81 mm mortar shells and Medium Machine Guns after a gap of almost one month injuring two civilians and causing damage to several residential structures in at least four villages across RS Pura sector.
Past midnight as shells started landing in the forward villages in Arnia piercing rooftops and damaging windowpanes the villagers faced great difficulty in evacuating the injured to the Government Medical College hospital in the absence of dedicated ambulance facility. Several livestock also bore the brunt of the heavy shelling in which at least six border posts were targeted from across the International border. One of the senior citizen received splinter injury in his eye while a 10-year-old boy was hit on the leg during the heavy exchange of firing.
Targeting of civilian areas by Pakistani Rangers has brought back memories of displacement from their permanent houses for a period of more than one month between July 16 and August 28, 2014 when situation had worsened on the International border for the first time after 1971 war. Inspector General of BSF, Jammu frontier Rakesh Sharma on Saturday said,” We have told them in the morning (during patrolling) don’t fire it is not good for general public on both the sides.”
“Why are you (Rangers) firing. If you fire, we will also fire,” is what has been conveyed to Pakistani rangers during patrolling of IB by BSF troops this morning, he said. Meanwhile, border residents of Devigarh village in RS Pura said, “the Central Government must give befitting reply to Pakistan as they have been indulging in heavy firing on civilian areas without any provocation”.
Malkiat Singh whose house was damaged in the unprovoked firing told reporters,” the small arms firing started around 7.10 pm and continued till midnight. After midnight Pak rangers started mortar shelling in the area. He said no one from the State Government is reaching us or extending any help in difficult times”. “We are surviving at the mercy of God”,he added.
The angry border residents assembled outside houses hit by Pak firing vent their ire on the absence of State Govt machinery. They said in the absence of ambulance facility in border areas we face many hardships in even evacuating injured people to safety. Omar Abdullah govt has failed to provide us an ambulance to rush injured to safety, the border residents alleged.
Narendra Kour, a female sarpanch in the area said, “the future of children living in border areas is at stake”. Their schools remained shut due to border tension in August and now Pak rangers have once again started targeting civilian areas. She demanded safe shelter for border residents and basic amenities to sustain away from the comfort zone of their own houses.