Poonch, Jammu & Kashmir: Amarjeet Singh was on his balcony approximately four kilometers from the border with Pakistan, warning others to seek shelter from the shelling from across the Line of Control (LoC), when a shell. fragments sliced through to his lungs.
With no chance of an ambulance making its way through the narrow alleys of their neighborhood in Poonch city, located in the Jammu division of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Atinder Singh carried his brother on foot to the nearest hospital, a few hundred meters away.
While Amarjeet, a husband and father of two young kids, who served as a subedar and later as a nayak in the Indian army, underwent surgery, his family could hear the sounds of artillery fire and exploding shells in the background.
Surjan Singh, a 61-year-old family member of Amarjeet, said, “We heard between 25 and 30 explosions nearby. Doctors were scared too. Newborn babies were on the top floor. They shifted the babies to another ward.”
“As long as we are alive, we will remember this war,” he said on 14 May, four days after the ceasefire between India and Pakistan following a four-day conflict that erupted after a terrorist attack in Kashmir on 22 April.
In Pahalgam, twenty-six people were killed in a terrorist attack that targeted Hindus. During four days of shelling and bombardment along the LoC, following India's strikes on terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on 7 May, 21 civilians—comprising Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs—including five children lost their lives in India following India's strikes on terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Five members of the Indian armed forces also lost their lives.
At least 40 civilians were killed in Pakistan.
In his address to the nation on 12 May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of the tragic loss of lives in the terrorist attack but failed to address the loss of civilian lives in Jammu during the four-day conflict.
The J&K government announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1,000,000 for the next of kin of those who lost their lives in the shelling.
On 21 May, the lieutenant governor of J&K, Manoj Sinha, visited Poonch, where he announced government jobs for the next of kin of those killed in Pakistan shelling.
Article 14 met with six families living in Poonch District, where 15 of the 21 people were killed. They included the families of 49-year-old Amarjeet Singh, 32-year-old Balvinder Kaur, seven-year-old Maryam Khatoon, 13-year-old Vihaan Bhargav, 47-year-old Qari Mohammad Iqbal, and 12-year-old twins Zain Ali and Urwah Fatima.
Authorities in Poonch District disbursed an ex-gratia amount of Rs 600,000 to the next of kin of the deceased, from the district Red Cross fund.
‘His Favourite Team Was Punjab Kings’
Doctors extracted two splinters, but the third one was near Amarjeet Singh's heart and had punctured his lungs.
Gathered in the room where the shell struck, Amarjeet Singh's relatives came together to share tales of their oldest and dearest cousin.
After 18 years of service in the army, Amarjeet Singh retired and became a granthi at the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha in Poonch. He conducted the recitation of the Guru Granth Sahib—the sacred scripture of the Sikhs—and performed hymns.
His musical instruments lay neatly in his room.
His nine-year-old daughter, unaware that her father was dead, played with her cousins.
Surjan Singh, sounding incredulous, said they were eating dinner and watching an India Premier League (IPL) cricket match together the night before.
“His favourite team was Punjab Kings,” Ikmanpal Singh, Amarjeet Singh’s 19-year-old cousin chimed in.
The following morning, family members, neighbors, and children—most of whom had never experienced war before—stood on their roofs and balconies observing the shelling, while Amarjeet shouted for everyone to come inside amid the deafening blasts.
Twelve days had gone by since the ceasefire between India and Pakistan when Article 14 spoke with Amarjeet Singh’s family again, this time over the phone. While the guns had long fallen silent, for them, this last bout of fighting between the two nuclear-armed neighbours was far from over.
Their home was damaged from the shelling, and heavy rains during that period made it impossible for them to sleep there. Many had taken refuge in the gurudwara close to their home, where Amarjeet Singh was the granthi before he was killed.
“Our elders tell us about wars, they said shelling never happened in the city,” said Kawanjyot Kaur, Amarjeet Singh’s 24-year-old cousin. “This is the first-time shelling happened in Poonch city,”
“We understand war happens, crises happens between countries. But arrangements should be made as a priority for border areas,” she said. “The hospital did the best they could according to the arrangements they had. It's the government that should have been prepared for the casualties and injuries.”
‘She Should Have Been Here To See The Kitchen’
On 17 May, people in Poonch commemorated the 14 lives lost there.
While Sikh families held paath and bhog (a recital of sacred text followed by a meal) at home, Hindu families marked the occasion with dashma (the tenth day following a death).
Located 42 km from Poonch city, the village of Mankote was grieving for Balvinder Kaur, 32, who lost her life when splinters from a Pakistani shell struck her home at 1:30 am on 7 May.
Balvinder was the first victim of Pakistani shelling in the entire Poonch district.
On 17 May, when we visited Balvinder's house, her family was putting up large printouts of her wedding pictures in her room, one of the two rooms with a tin sheet ceiling.
Balvinder’s husband, Kala Singh said that she only lived for her three kids—Simran Kaur, 12, Jaspreet Kaur, 10 and Ranbir Singh, almost 2—and she dreamed of having enough money someday for some renovations to their home.
Struggling to make ends meet, Kala Singh works as a daily wage laborer, earning between Rs 300 to 400 each day when work is regular.
Because there was no cement ceiling in their residence, they went to stay at Balvinder's uncle's house for the night when the shelling started.
Balvinder and her younger daughter were struck by fragments from a shell explosion. Balvinder was killed instantly after being hit in the head, while her daughter sustained a severe leg injury.
Kala Singh said that he made some improvements to the kitchen after Balvinder died because so many people were coming to offer their condolences and he wanted to ensure the house appeared presentable.
“She should have been here to see the kitchen," he said.
In Poonch, the family of Javed Iqbal grieved for his seven-year-old daughter, Maryam Khatoon, who was tragically killed by shrapnel from a Pakistani shell that landed near their home at approximately nine in the morning on 7 May.
When we visited Maryam’s home, her mother, Shehnaz Akhther, 32, broke down and was unable to speak.
They lived in a tiny two-room house. The front of their shop had holes from the splinters that struck Maryam in the back of the house. She was standing by the door which still had her drawings.
Maryam was only in nursery school, but she told her father that she wanted to be a police officer. He said she was closest to him and would only eat if he fed her.
“As soon as I returned from work, she would latch onto my pajamas, giggling,” he said.
“I can’t even bear to come back to this house anymore. Everything reminds me of Maryam. Look at her mother, she is mostly sick and now this pain is killing her even more,” he said. “My youngest one asks about her when he sees her picture on the phone. I deleted all those.”
‘They Want To Grieve In Peace’
Talking to Article 14 on phone, Bhaskar Sharma, an uncle of 13-year-old Vihaan Bhargav, who was lovingly called Aadi by his family members, said they did not need compensation but they wanted an acknowledgment from the government.
Vihaan Bhargav was killed on 7 May.
“We can manage without money but we’d like a small ceremony to be held for people killed by Pakistan shelling where the government honours them as martyrs and acknowledges their sacrifice,” said Bhaskar. “Isn’t that the least that they (govt) should do?”
Vihaan was studying in class eight at Christ School—the same school as 12-year-old twins Zain Ali and Urwah Fatima—who were also killed in shelling on 7 May.
We visited his house in Poonch city on 14 May, where his aunt, Archana Sharma, and other family members mourned him with loud cries.
His room was filled with action figures, anime stickers of Dragon Ball Z and Naruto and his drawings of mountains, rivers , sunsets, and trees.
His pets—a husky named Cursor, parrots, canaries and fishes—were being looked after by neighbours and relatives.
“Before leaving, Aadi told his neighbours to take care of Cursor till he comes back,” said Abhi Sharma, Vihaan’s cousin brother.
Abhi Sharma said that Vihaan would often take his phone to play games and he could unlock new games for free.
In tears, Archana continued, “His father would call him ‘my monkey’ as he wouldn’t leave him alone at all.”
Going on evening walks with his father and Cursor was the only time he would be away from the phone, she said.
When his parents came back from Haridwar in Uttarakhand, they grieved in silence.
“They are tired of talking to the media and leaders now, they want to grieve in peace,” said Bhaskar, his uncle. “Like I said, God has given them more than enough that they don’t even need financial compensation. What we need is the government to honour our child’s life, that’s all.”
‘They Ruined Our Family’
Around 20 km from Poonch city, the family of Qari Mohammad Iqbal, 47, in Bhaila village, in Mandi, appealed for similar sentiments of honour and justice.
Iqbal, a teacher in Jamia Zia-Ul-Uloom madrasa for 21 years, lost his life to shelling while vacating his students to safety on the morning of May 7.
What happened the next day shattered his already devastated family.
National news channels were reporting that he was a terrorist killed in Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“They declared him, the only scholar from our village, the mastermind of Pulwama attack,” said Qari Mohammad Farooq, Iqbal’s younger brother.
“They ruined our family and rubbed salt in our wounds,” Qari Mohammad Farooq, Iqbal’s younger brother, said. “We consoled ourselves thinking our brother has been martyred for the nation but what the national media has done is shameful. We will never forget it.”
For Farooq and other young people in the village, Qari, belonging to the Gujjar community-classified as nomadic scheduled tribe, has been a source of inspiration for his scholarly studies. He asked that the government, the district collector’s office and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take cognizance of the matter and cancel licences of such news channels that spread fake news and defame innocent citizens of India.
People from all over Poonch all visited Iqbal’s house to pay their respects.
Iqbal had two wives—Naseem Akhter and Shehnaz Akhter—and he was a father to eight children. His eldest son, Danish, 18, is battling polio and is differently abled.
Qari, the sole breadwinner of the family, was in the middle of building toilets in his house and making two more rooms for his children, on his meagre salary.
There was no one to take care of Iqbal’s family financially, said Mukhtar Ahmed, the village head. The compensation they received was divided equally between two wives, but it wasn’t enough for ten people.
The vice chancellor of the madrassa, Maulana Syed Ahmed Habib, said Iqbal was telling students to leave the building of the madrassa when he was hit by a shell.
Iqbal’s kurta pajama was still hanging on the walls marked with the holes of the shells that took his life. His books were kept neatly on a side table and his chappals (slippers) were lying next to the broken door of his room.
Asked to describe him, the vice chancellor said people would come to him seeking spiritual advice.
(Ayushi Malik works as a Media fellow with Karwan e Mohabbat in New Delhi.)
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