Grief-stricken Kashmiris re-unite at LoC
Bureau Report
MUZAFFARABAD—Chakothi-Uri crossing point has opened on Line of Control (LoC)
for people. As many as 24 people including 18 men and 6 women on
Thursday trekked to LoC to return to held Valley. No one cross the LoC
from held Kashmir.
The people, who were mainly passengers who had gone to meet their
relatives in Aaaboard the ‘Carvan-e-Aman’ bus, had to foot the distance
from Chakoti to Kaman post as a four-km stretch on the other side is
still blocked with quake debris and a pier of Aman Setu connecting the
two sides collapsed. Chakothi was the first crossing point among five
opened for quake relief operations from where people started trekking.
Kashmiris reunited in grief across the ceasefire line dividing their
quake-stricken homeland on Thursday, after arch rivals Pakistan and
India relaxed border restrictions as a humanitarian gesture.
Beneath Himalayan mountains, a temporary wooden footbridge has been
built over a stream that divides the disputed region, enabling Kashmiris
to check on surviving relatives on the other side after the devastating
Oct. 8 tremor.
“I came. I was very happy. I saw all the family but after the earthquake
they are living in a very bad situation. It is a very sad moment for
me,” said 72-year-old Attaullah Khawaja, his wrinkled face framed by a
white beard and flat woollen cap.
Khawaja lives in Indian held Kashmir and was visiting his family on the
Pakistani side when the earth shook, collapsing the permanent bridge
that had spanned the stream and had carried a fortnightly bus service
between the two sides since April.
Until Thursday, only relief supplies but no human traffic were allowed
over the footbridge linking Chakothi and Uri, leaving Kashmiris aching
for news of loved ones.
Khawaja was waiting on Thursday to return to the Indian side where, he
had been told, a grandson was among the dead.
Zalikha Begum, an elderly woman wearing a shawl, said she too had been
stranded on the AJK side by the quake.
“I have many relatives here. I don’t want to go back but I have to. My
house was destroyed and my brother’s too. They are living in the open”,
she said.
Thursday’s crossing was mostly one-way traffic, with a total of 24
Kashmiris returning home from Azad Kashmir.
Eighty-three people from Indian held Kashmir have been cleared to make
the trip to Azad Kashmir but it was not clear on Thursday why they had
not yet come across. None of the 120 people who live in Azad Kashmir and
applied to go the other way have yet had their names cleared by the
Indian authorities.
Pakistan’s military says people will be allowed to cross the other four
border points later this month.
The United Nations wants to see the ceasefire line opened to its own aid
trucks, saying it could save thousands of lives in remote mountain
communities on the Pakistani side, but the two sides have yet to agree
to this.
The fortnightly bus service, between Srinagar, the summer capital of
Indian held Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, had been opened thanks to a peace
process begun by India and Pakistan almost two years ago, but was
suspended after the quake. Roads along the route, both sides of the
border, are still being cleared of landslides in many places.
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