Talk of peace brings fear to Kashmir border
By Surinder Oberoi
RAJOURI, India (AFP): When India and Pakistan decide to sit down for peace talks, the villagers living along the two rivals' disputed border in Kashmir know that it is time to pack their bags.
Bitter experience has taught the people in these areas the paradox that any new peace initiative on Kashmir is almost always accompanied by an upsurge of violence instigated by parties opposed to the process.
With just weeks to go before the July 15 summit in the Taj Mahal town of Agra between Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, residents of border districts like Rajouri and Poonch are getting out.
"Half of our families have moved to (the Kashmir winter capital) Jammu or other safe places as we fear some reprisal attacks by militants or heavy exchanges of firing on the borders," said Mohammed Aslam.
Aslam lives in a village in the Bimber Gali hills, which run along the Line of Control (LoC) -- the de facto boder separating Indian- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Indian security forces have carried out a major "search and destroy" operation in the hills of Rajouri and Poonch in the past two weeks, killing more than 100 Muslim separatist militants.
"The militants will strike back," said Hindu businessman Munshi Ram, who has moved his family to the relative safety of Rajouri district township.
"Whenever there has been an international event vis-a-vis Kashmir, we people living in the border areas have suffered," said Rattan Lal, a resident of Surankote village who has also moved to Rajouri town.
Some have heeded the invitations broadcast from the loudhailers of mosques across the border and simply moved into Pakistan, hoping life there would be safer.
"It's a case of the grass is always greener," said one Indian military intelligence official.
"The numbers crossing over have dropped in recent years as people now understand their (Pakistan's) tricks," the official said.
Tricks or no, a seven-member family migrated to Pakistan- administered Kashmir from a Rajouri border village only last week.
Official data shows that more than 1,000 people have crossed into Pakistan in the past year, while some 500 families have moved down from their hillside villages to the main towns.
"It is better to live in bad conditions here than to live in fear of your life every minute among the soldiers and the militants," said Jia Lal, who moved his wife and three children to Jammu city, where he now works as a casual laborer.
The Lals live in a makeshift tent colony on the banks of the Tawi River. The colony houses around 2,000 families, most of the them from Poonch and Rajouri.
"The government gives us hardly any help," said one frustrated resident, Hasina Begum. "In this colony, only 80 families are given a monthly living stipend. The rest of us have to make do on our own."
The chief civil administrator of Rajouri, Asfandiyar Khan, insisted that the fresh movement taking place was simply "economic urbanization" and not the result of people fleeing in fear.
A senior government official, who asked not to be identified, said the official line on urbanization was pushed to prevent the government having to pay compensation to the migrants.
The government is already paying around 2,300 rupees (US$50) per month to the tens of thousands of Kashmiri Hindu families who fled the Kashmir Valley following the launch of the Muslim insurgency in 1989.
Despite the poor quality of life in the towns and cities, the villagers who move have no intention of going back -- at least for the moment.
"We will never return to the borders as no day passes without small arms firing between Indian and Pakistani troops," said former village elder Chain Singh.
"In the ceasefire period, some families shifted back to their villages, but with the announcement of the summit everyone has returned to the camps," said Singh.