by Anam Zakaria
Adds one woman, ‘Initially, none of us knew where he vanished. Even his mother was crying, she was saying, “I don’t know where my son has gone. Did someone kill him? Did he become a martyr?” He had hidden and disappeared without telling them. The mujahideen have their camps and the boys make their acquaintance with them somehow and start visiting these camps. Then the mujahideen brainwash them, they ignite passion in them, they say jihad is this, jihad is that. They convince them to become a part of it.’
‘The boy was just twenty-four or twenty-five years old,’ says another woman. ‘He returned last year after disappearing for about six months. Initially, we would go to his mother’s house and console her. We didn’t know he was with the mujahid. But when he came back, and we found out he was with the mujahid, we were so angry with his mother. We told her to throw him back there, that we didn’t want him here. He kept crying and saying he’d made a huge mistake. That it was his first time and he’d never go again.’
‘He had walked back the entire way, he had walked so much that the skin of his feet had peeled off,’ Ayesha shares. ‘He was in a group of fifty people, only four of whom returned. But they weren’t all local; many came from Punjab or elsewhere. He was the only one from our area. I spoke to him later and he said, “Baji, humne koi driver ya conductor hi banna tha na, ya koi chhoti se dukaan dalni thi…, Isliye jab mainen itna attractive package dekha to maine kaha ke try karte hain. Shaheed bhi honge to Allah ki raah mein honge. Maine kaha, chalte hain, dekhte hain (Sister, my future was bleak. I knew that at most I’d become a driver or bus conductor or maybe start a small business… So when I saw such a lucrative package, I thought why not try my luck? Even if I became a martyr, it would be in Allah’s name. I thought, let’s go and see what happens).’
‘And what about the second boy from your community who joined the mujahideen?’
‘He became a mujahid around 1994-95. His family couldn’t bear that their son had joined militancy. His father went blind from all the stress and died two years ago. No one ever saw his son again.’
***
Before we head out, the women offer to show us around. They show us their lands, their animals. Then Ayesha’s tai holds my arm and says, ‘Come, see one of the bunkers. I want you to see how long you can stay in one.’ Hesitatingly, I agree to go with her. The path is rocky and I walk slowly, trying not to lose my balance. The house is on top of a hill and I don’t want to tumble down. Ayesha’s tai holds my hand as I jump down from one of the rocks. She leads me inside a small dark room, no more than 7 x 13 feet. She shuts the door behind us. It is pitch dark. There is no air in the room. My heart begins to race and I cannot wait for the door to open again. I feel suffocated. She keeps holding my hand and says, ‘Imagine growing up in here. What would that do to you?’ The next 30 seconds that I spend in there are some of the most stifling moments of my life.
***
Back in the car, Sharjeel tells us we are to drive further down in Athmuqam, to meet with a professor. ‘He knows a lot about the area. He stayed here even during the firing. He didn’t run away to the jungle or other cities. He’ll be able to tell you a lot.’
We drive until we reach a narrow bridge, made with wooden planks. Haroon parks at the foot of it and turns around. ‘I don’t think the car can pass over that,’ he says to Sharjeel. We walk over the bridge, which seems to sway lightly under our weight. Under the bridge, a rocky, dried-up stream is full of litter. It is at a deep descent and I am glad we chose not to drive over it.
‘You see that college,’ Sharjeel says, pointing to a building on our left. ‘That was completely destroyed during the firing. The professor we are to meet used to teach there.’ Next to the college, I can see Islamic Relief signboards about access to clean water, the provision of which is meant to be the government’s responsibility. I wonder how many other charity and welfare organizations, those with or without militant affiliations, continue to fill the state vacuum, entrenching themselves into the region and harnessing public support, at times furthering militancy in the garb of providing relief.
Across us we can see tall mountain peaks, some covered with snow already. I still cannot seem to tell which mountain is under Indian control and which under Pakistani. Yet all the locals seem to know—even the young child who receives us as we cross the bridge. Slipping into ‘enemy’ territory is a matter of life and death for them. The young boy is Sharjeel’s cousin’s son. ‘We’ll go and wait at my cousin’s house. I cannot get through to the professor. There are no phone signals in the area,’ he says, putting his phone away. We must be very close to the LoC in that case, I reason.
We enter a large white house, which is divided into two parts. Sharjeel’s cousin Razi (the name has been changed to protect his identity) receives us in a long verandah. He is a young man dressed in an off-white shalwar kameez. He greets us with a warm smile and guides us into a spacious room, where his wife walks in a few minutes later with glasses of Mountain Dew and biscuits. As we wait for the professor, Razi tells me that the part of the house we sit in has been newly renovated. A mortar hit the other portion. His parents live there now, after it was rebuilt. Razi also speaks about the refugees who crossed over during the 1990s, about giving them shelter. And about how several of them were involved in the militancy.
I ask him if I could record his interview and he agrees. Just then Sharjeel, who had gone to check on the professor, walks back into the house. The professor isn’t home. As I switch the recorder on and turn towards Razi, I sense something shift inside him. His body language seems more cautious and his expression tense. His guard seems to be up. I cannot quite tell if it is because Sharjeel has returned or because he knows his voice is now being recorded. But Razi begins to speak, albeit with hesitation in his voice.
‘I went to Karachi before 1990, to find work, but I would keep coming back to my village in between. I spent a year here during the mortar shelling. Our entire family would go and hide inside a bunker. I’ll show it to you on the way out. We still haven’t demolished it because we are scared the firing might start again. Sometimes it would last ten minutes, sometimes 2 hours, sometimes a whole day. There was no limit. We had no choice but to hide inside the bunkers, no matter how long it lasted. There would be twelve to thirteen people in there together, sometimes for four days at a time. There was no washroom, no food, no water.’
‘What about the mujahideen? You had mentioned that your family had initially helped them when they crossed over from that side of the LoC during the 1990s?’ I ask, trying to divert our conversation back to what we had spoken about inside the room. ‘At that time, those people were badly impacted by the crackdowns in makbooza Kashmir. They were Muslims too, it was our duty to help them. They stayed for fifteen to sixteen days with us. But these were civilians who had crossed the border to avoid the Indian Army, they weren’t mujahideen. The Azad Kashmir government built camps for them eventually, around 1990-91. We don’t know if any of them came for training, we cannot say that for sure. Of course, those types of people came too but we don’t know who they were or when they came.’
Razi’s earlier confident tone and articulate accounts of militants’ crossing over for training alongside civilians is replaced by confusion and uncertainty. I turn the recorder off and tell him he can speak to us openly. ‘Was there support for the mujahideen in the beginning?’ But shutting the recorder off doesn’t seem to help; he seems to have gone into a shell, giving me a narrative which almost seems rehearsed. I realize it is futile to expect him to be forthcoming now.
We leave Razi’s house at about 4 pm. The sun dances in front of us as the car swings from left to right on the narrow rocky road. We drive down to a rest house in Keran. We order some more tea and seat ourselves by the Neelum river. The wind is chilly. Across us, we can see Indian-administered Kashmir. It seems within reach, a few metres away. A young man is walking his goats. Two women are roaming about. The mosque situated across the LoC blares the magrib azan (evening call f
or prayer). It serves as a call for prayer for both sides and people in both parts of Kashmir gather to say their prayers.
‘Come, see this,’ Sharjeel calls out. He has taken out his camera and is zooming in across the LoC. I look through the lens and see two tall electric fences, with barbed wire in between. ‘Can anyone cross through that? You tell me?’ he asks.
I realize why Sharjeel had insisted we drive down to Keran. Unlike the women, he believes that no militants can cross over from Neelum Valley anymore, that infiltration is nearly impossible from this area. By bringing me here, he wanted to convince me that there was no justification for cross-LoC firing, which had taken away his youth, his education, and many of his relatives. There was no longer any rationale for thwarting the peace and normalcy his people had just now started to embrace.
***
It is now May 2017. I am revisiting Ayesha almost one-and-a-half years since our last meeting. Dozens of mosquitoes fly towards me as I peek into Ayesha’s family’s bunker. It was built in the 1990s but continues to serve as their only respite now that the LoC in Neelum Valley has been activated once more. Ayesha gives me a warm hug at the entrance of the house and guides me towards one of the rooms. Her mother is inside, looking weary and tense. I sit next to both of them on a mattress spread out on the floor and ask them about the happenings of the last few months.
In 2016, India-Pakistan relations plunged to a historic low. On 2 January, just a few days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s friendly visit to Pakistan, the Pathankot air base was attacked; it was alleged that terrorists operating out of Pakistan had planned and executed the attack. In July 2016, when Indian security forces killed Burhan Wani and protests and unrest broke out in Indian-administered Kashmir, India accused Pakistan of fuelling cross-border terrorism in the region.14 The two countries also engaged in a spat at the United Nations. India asserted that Pakistan used terrorism as a state policy while Pakistan charged India with human rights violations,15 particularly pointing towards the use of violence in the aftermath of Burhan Wani’s killing, which resulted in pellet wounds, deaths and debilitating injuries across Indian-administered Kashmir. Then, in September 2016, eighteen soldiers were killed in Uri in what was termed as ‘one of the deadliest attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir in more than two decades’.16 India pointed fingers at Pakistan for the attack while Pakistan accused India of outsourcing responsibility for the unrest in Kashmir in order to ‘deflect the world’s attention from the situation in India-occupied Kashmir’.17
It was later that month, on 29 September, that India claimed to have carried out surgical strikes in ‘Azad’ Kashmir, targeting terror launch pads. Dudhnial, located in Neelum Valley, was one of the areas where India allegedly carried out these strikes. Though Pakistan strongly denied the strikes, the authorities advised the locals of Neelum Valley to start building bunkers as tensions across the LoC were anticipated. Soon afterwards, post-to-post firing resumed in Neelum Valley. However, the locals only realized the gravity of the situation in October, when a rest house in Keran—the same rest house where Haroon and I spent our wedding anniversary—was reportedly attacked by Indian forces.18 For the first time in almost thirteen years, civilians had been targeted in Neelum Valley. After that, other villages in the vicinity were also reportedly shelled, and fear gripped the residents as they were thrust back into violence. Local journalists confirm that thirteen civilians died between September 2016 and January 2017, and that twenty-five people were injured in Neelum Valley alone.
Ayesha tells me that since November 2016, she has had to flee to Muzaffarabad with her younger siblings three times. ‘They never saw the firing in the 1990s, so it’s alien to them. Fortunately, Athmuqam hasn’t been hit directly but nearby villages like Shahkot have suffered, and the Pakistani forces also used their posts in Athmuqam to fire at the Indians. Whenever that happens, the sound of the mortar is so loud that the children fall to the floor; they cover their ears and start screaming. We couldn’t keep them here, so each time there was fear of firing, I would run away with them to Muzaffarabad. We rented a room there but because so many families were moving to the city, you could hardly find space, and rent prices skyrocketed. It would cost Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 a month to rent a small room. Eighty per cent of the families from our area fled. Even now most of them are displaced. I would say less than one-third of the families have returned. The rest are too scared to come back.’
However, just as in the 1990s, not everyone could afford to leave the area. Ayesha’s mother has stayed put. She tells me she has to look after the house, the fields and the animals. ‘We can’t just pick up and leave.’ Ayesha’s tai has also stayed back. She comes into the room and gives me a big hug. ‘Did you write that we only want peace?’ she asks. I tell her I have. This gives her some comfort and she smiles at me. Then she points towards the beige walls and says, ‘Do you see those cracks? We spent so much money rebuilding our homes after the devastation in the 1990s. Now, the firing in nearby areas has cracked our walls again. Who will rebuild this? It takes Rs 4 to 5 lakhs to build a strong bunker. Do you think the people here have that kind of money?’
Ayesha informs me that even Islamic Relief, which had helped build bunkers in the 1990s, has stopped working in the area. Under the national action plan—implemented after the Peshawar school attack in 2014, with the goal of combatting terrorism—all NGOs need a no-objection certificate to work in ‘Azad’ Kashmir, and this can be difficult to obtain. ‘The NGOs are also scared of the firing. Most of them have packed up and left for Muzaffarabad, which is removed from the shelling.’ She now works for another relief agency. ‘We have been going to schools and teaching children first aid. We are teaching them what to do if firing begins. They have been brought up after the ceasefire… they don’t understand what is happening. But these are all soft skills… they can only help so much.’
On 23 November 2016, a mortar shell hit a passenger bus in Nagdar, about 3-4 kilometres from Keran in Neelum Valley, killing at least nine persons and injuring another ten.19 In the aftermath of the attack, the authorities closed off the main road in Neelum Valley (the road that connects Neelum Valley with Muzaffarabad), which is sandwiched between Indian and Pakistani army posts. This harked back to the conditions in the 1990s, when Neelum Valley was closed off to the outside world. Internet and telephone communication too were shut down and the deputy commissioner of the area told the locals to clean their bunkers and get ready for firing. Petrified of what this meant for them, the women rose up once again and demanded that authorities put an immediate end to the firing and open the road.
Ayesha tells me that for the first time, AJK University has established a centre in Athmuqam for students to appear for their exams. However, this too had to be shifted to Muzaffarabad because of the firing. ‘I had to appear for my examinations, to complete my master’s. But the road was blocked. When I called the MLA, he told me to use the bypass instead. That’s close to impossible. The bypass is routed through the mountains. It’s a kachcha road, which at certain points directly exposes travellers to Indian posts. It takes a whole day to reach Muzaffarabad from the bypass and it costs Rs 500, which makes it unaffordable for common people. Many of my peers could not appear for the annual exam. A whole year of their education has been wasted. They have to appear again next year now.’ Due to the road blockage, even food supplies could not reach the valley, with prices shooting up because of shortages.
The MLA from the area, Shah Ghulam Qadir, also serves as the speaker of the AJK legislative assembly. When I ask Ayesha if he or any other government representative offered any help, she shakes her head. ‘They do nothing for us. At most they offered to give us atta (flour) at half the price and to provide materials for building bunkers, but in reality they never implement these policies. No one got anything. And anyway, we don’t care about their atta. We want peace. Do you think half-priced atta is compensation for our lives?’ She tells me they expect nothing from the government anymore. Ever si
nce heavy firing started in the area, government representatives receded to the background, most of them running away to Muzaffarabad to save their own lives.
From the corner, Ayesha’s mother speaks again. ‘By the end of November we had had enough. The road had been shut for a couple of days and we refused to go back to the pre-ceasefire conditions. About 500-600 of us men, women and children got up to protest. The army kept trying to block our way, putting rocks and barriers on the road. But we weren’t going to listen. We were holding white flags and chanted peace slogans. We picked up the barriers with our own hands and told them they had to open the roads or else we were going to march up to Islamabad. Nothing could hold us back.’
It seems to me as if the army realizes that the local community is a force to be reckoned with. Ayesha says that they tried to pass several laws—such as not allowing more than a few people to gather in a public space—in order to curb the protests. The army’s people have also been visiting the locals, asking them for their support in the movement. ‘Your brothers and sisters are suffering in makbooza Kashmir, it is our duty to support them and it is your duty to let us do our work without all this fuss.’ However, the locals are drained; no rationale justifies reigniting the firing. According to Ayesha, ‘the Pakistan Army tells the locals the Indian Army is preparing to attack us… that they are training a militia to infiltrate and strike us. They have been telling us to stay prepared and vigilant. When we tell them we don’t want to fight, we just want peace, they claim that we are going against Kashmir’s interest. They tell us that Neelum Valley is bab-e-azadi (gateway to azadi. Due to its close proximity to the LoC, Neelum is strategically placed. That is why it was allegedly the hotbed of militant movements during the 1990s.) However, when we protested, and in such large numbers, they realized that they did not have any local support and now they have started to back off. They have stopped coming to us and asking for support. The firing has also halted. So far, in 2017, we haven’t faced any incident. Occasionally, we hear some firing… it is probably the Indian and Pakistan Army firing towards each other’s posts, but they haven’t targeted any civilians and it’s becoming more and more infrequent.’
