THE KASHMIRIS CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE: THOSE IN THE DISPUTED REGION BEAR THE COST OF THE INDIA-PAKISTAN CONFLICT
Fahad Shah
POONCH, Jammu and Kashmir—In the early hours of May 7, 12-year-old twins Zain Ali and Urwa Fatima cowered in their family home as the walls around them shook amid heavy shelling. The Pakistan Army had unleashed an intense round of artillery fire nearby, hours after Indian warplanes struck nine locations across the border.
Zain and Urwa sheltered with their parents, Rameez Khan, 43, and his wife, Urusa Khan, 33, at their house in Poonch, a district in Indian-administered Kashmir near the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides the disputed region between India and Pakistan.
The family moved to Poonch, where the twins had started attending school, just two months ago. The city is around 5 miles from their native village of Chandak, and the parents decided to move closer to the new school to avoid daily bus commutes—and for their children’s safety. The twins had recently celebrated their 12th birthday in a rented two-story concrete house in a narrow alley just a few yards away from the school.
When a shell hit their neighbor’s house on May 7, the twins called their maternal uncle, Adil Pathan, pleading with him to take them to safety. Pathan left Surankote, 17 miles away, and parked his car outside the alley a few hours later. Urusa held her daughter’s hand and Rameez held his son’s hand as the parents locked the door to their house.
Pathan was watching his family walk toward him when another shell struck behind them and filled the alley with smoke, splinters, and dust.
“I ran towards them and first found Urwa lying in blood, her legs twitching and shaking, before she died within seconds,” Pathan said. “I picked up Urwa and put her in the car. My sister went looking for Zain and found him in a neighbor’s courtyard after being hit in the abdomen.”
After the blast, Zain had stepped inside the courtyard and collapsed. A neighbor tried to revive him with CPR, but it was too late. Both children were rushed to the hospital in Poonch. After half an hour, Urusa realized her husband was missing.
“Please go back and look for him,” she told her brother. Pathan drove back to the house and found Rameez lying unconscious, surrounded by blood. By the time he was brought to the hospital, the doctors had declared the twins dead.
Since 1947, India and Pakistan have both claimed the region of Kashmir; over the years, the nuclear-armed neighbors have fought three major wars and experienced multiple clashes. The latest escalation erupted after militants killed 26 civilians in the Pahalgam valley in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22. India accuses Pakistan of supporting the militants who carried out the attack, but Islamabad has denied involvement.
In response to the Pahalgam attack, India launched what it called Operation Sindoor on May 7, conducting airstrikes in Pakistan that New Delhi said targeted “terrorist camps” used to train fighters and plan attacks in Kashmir. Pakistan responded with missile strikes, followed by drone attacks and artillery shelling along the border that struck in Kashmir and beyond, including in the states of Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.
The latest conflict was the most intense military flare-up between India and Pakistan since February 2019, when India conducted a bombing raid on militant bases in Balakot, Pakistan, following an attack on an Indian police convoy in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir. Amid the India-Pakistan conflict, it is still Kashmir that bears the brunt of bullets, bombs, shells, and now drones. Violence has punctuated the contested region’s history: Since 2019, at least 277 soldiers and 212 civilians have died in 730 reported incidents in Kashmir.
A few months after the 2019 attack, the Indian government revoked Article 370, which had guaranteed Kashmir’s special autonomous status, and launched a crackdown on militancy in the region. At the same time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government implemented strict policies to suppress political dissent, targeting local political groups, journalists, and civil society leaders.
Sumantra Bose, an Indian political scientist and the author of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict, said that after 2019, the quiet Kashmir valley resembled that of a graveyard, not a peaceful society. “Following the abrogation of Article 370, the repression was so suffocating that any semblance of political dissent or resistance was crushed,” he said, warning that since the “illusion of peace has shattered, what lies ahead could be far more destabilizing.”
In the latest clash, the Indian border districts of Uri, Rajouri, Poonch, and Akhnoor saw the human cost of mounting tensions. As I traveled across the region this month, villages and towns emptied as people migrated away from the border areas to safer locations. Those who stayed behind said they felt trapped: Many residents who spoke to Foreign Policy said they were caught in a battle between two nuclear-armed powers.
Fahad Shah is a Kashmiri journalist and writer. He is the founder and editor of The Kashmir Walla and anthology editor of “Of Occupation and Resistance: Writings from Kashmir.” Excerpted from an article in Foreign Policy magazine.
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