Shelled, Shocked

Villagers along the LoC are on edge.

- Tariq Bhat

On March 1, as Wing Commander Ab-hinandan Varthaman stepped back on Indian soil, Pakistan began shelling areas along the Line of Control. One of the villages hit was Salootri, in Poonch tehsil of Jammu and Kashmir. The shells landed on a hillock close to a cluster of houses, among them the home of Muhammad Younis Khan, a madrassa teacher. Scared, he told his wife Rubina to take their five-year-old son Muhammad Faizan and ten-month-old daughter Shabnum Akhtar, and move to a safer place. Just then, a shell hit their three-room, single-storey home. His wife and children died on the spot; Khan’s right leg was sliced open by shrapnel. He cried for help but the shells kept neighbours away.

Nearby, one shell exploded close to his uncle Muhammad Hussain’s house. “My daughter-in-law was in the kitchen when the shell burst outside,” Hussain told THE WEEK. “A neighbour said shelling stopped after an announcement was made from a mosque in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir that civilians had died in Salootri.”

As soon as he got the chance, Hussain rushed to Khan’s house. “Rubina was dead and part of the heads of Faizan and Shabnum had been blown to bits by the shrapnel,” he said. “Younis was bleeding and writhing in pain. The police came and took him to hospital.”

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

Shazia, 7, sifts through the debris of her uncle Muhammad Younis Khan’s home, which was destroyed by Pakistani shelling Khan’s father, Muhammad Aslam, said he had lost everything. “I do not know what to do,” he said. “We are poor people. Who will care for my son now?”