Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – As the camera panned around a home blown up by the mortar fire in Poonch, an embattled hill city perched on the disputed border between India and Pakistan, a disembodied female voice cried out.“This is a calamity.”
The video, shared with Al Jazeera by locals in Poonch, revealed a collapsed staircase, large craters in the walls, and a courtyard cluttered with rubble and clothes, and painted in blood.
“Everything I built is in ruins,” the voice exclaimed, loaded with anguish.
At least 11 people have been killed in Poonch district from Pakistani firing into Indian-administered Kashmir since early May 7, in retaliation for Indian missile strikes that hit multiple sites across Pakistan’s Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The Indian strikes – themselves a response to a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22 – mark the most extensive attack on Pakistani soil since their 1971 war that ended with the eastern wing of Pakistan lopped off, resulting in the creation of Bangladesh. Advertisement
Yet, as the nuclear-armed neighbours stand on the edge of a potential military conflict, many Kashmiris say they are facing the brunt of their tensions. Pakistan’s bombardment of Indian-administered Kashmir on Wednesday night was, according to locals and experts, the most intense shelling that villages and towns in the region have seen in more than 40 years. …
