Baramulla: The people living along the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir are jubilant at the news that India and Pakistan’s armies have arrived at a ceasefire agreement. Lal din Ahmad, village head of Churanda in Uri in Baramulla district, said that his village on the LoC in Hajipeer sector has been the most affected in Uri sector where 19 people have been killed, 35 injured, some of them disabled for life, and hundreds of residential houses damaged in the past few years due to cross-border shelling and firing.
Ahmad said that not only Churanda but several other villages including Balkote, Tilawari, Silikote, Kamalkote, Soura, Nambla, Garkoot, Hathlanga and others have seen a large number of lives lost and property destroyed. For all of them, he said, the fresh agreement is a welcome step and a matter of great relief.
Similarly, the people living along LoC in Karan, Karnah, Mujigund, Nowgam, Machil, Teetwal, Gurez and Tulail sectors of Kupwara and Bandipora districts are also very happy that both nations have agreed to a ceasefire. They said that such an agreement was signed in 2003 and there was peace on the borders for a long time after that.
Fayaz Ahmad, a local social worker in Karnah Tehsil of frontier district Kupwara, told Kashmir Reader that only the people living close to the LoC know how they have been living all these years, how they keep shifting their families to safer places, how they cannot develop their business and residential houses because every moment they are living under threat.
People appealed to both the countries to reopen the Uri Kaman, Teetwal and other crossing points so that people can cross the LoC to meet their relatives and friends. They also appealed to the authorities to resume the bus and trade services through Uri crossing point so that people can do more business.

Reader correspondent