Can’t Wait to Go Back Home: Cross-Shelling Affected Uri Residents
We Are Peace Lovers; Don’t Snatch It Again; We Are Already Half Dead
Suhail Khan
“Am I really going back home? Will I truly see my loved ones again? Will my mother once again prepare me for school?” Tahira, a secondary school student, sits in a room at Darul-uloom Sheeri, where she and her family are temporarily staying after fleeing the shelling in Uri town.
“I feel half dead. It’s as if I’ve forgotten how to dream about the future or even imagine playing with my friends at school again. The memories of that night and the Pakistani bombardment still haunt me, filling me with fear. I still can’t believe I’m going home.”
“Can I really prepare meals for my children? Will I truly see my home again? Is this all a dream?” Tears roll down the face of Shahjahana, a mother of two daughters, displaced by the cross-border shelling. Now sheltered in Baramulla, she asks, “How could there be morethan than this happiness when a mother can pack tiffin for her daughters to send them to school?” Her voice trembles as she pleads, “Please don’t make us face these hardships again. We have witnessed destruction at every turn and endured bombardments. Now, we want to see our children’s bright future—to watch them represent our India, our Desh, our Bharat.”
“We are overjoyed to hear that both countries agreed to a ceasefire. It’s undoubtedly a blessing after all the destruction. Better late than never. Our happiness was snatched away, and our survival was in doubt. Can we really return to our homes?” Tahir Ahmad, a resident of Sultan Tikri, now staying in government-provided accommodation after his house in Uri town was heavily shelled, shares his thoughts.
Tahir said, “We are peace lovers; we always desire peace. We don’t want to witness this destruction again. We appeal to both countries to engage in constructive dialogue once and for all so that we don’t have to flee our homes in the middle of the night. We don’t want to suffer again; we don’t want our children to die or endure this cross-border shelling. Please, don’t do this to us again. We are poor people with few desires—just the wish to live peacefully with our families. Don’t take that away from us.”
“You’re lying! I don’t believe you!” Daughter of Nargis, a 40-year-old woman who died in the shelling.
She was set to marry next month, is consumed by trauma and shock. “What does peace mean to me now, when my peace has been stolen forever?”
“What was our fault? What did we do wrong? Why is this happening to us? Please bring my mother back. How can I return home without her? How can we live without her?”
“This ceasefire may be good for the countries, but what peace is this for me when my inner peace was destroyed in the bombardment?”
Weeping, she begged the nations not to repeat this suffering, saying, “We have already lost too much.”
India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire on land, sea and air effective from 5 pm today, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced today.
Tensions escalated between two neighbouring nations – India and Pakistan – ever since the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 civilians were killed.
Yesterday was a night of intense drone activity along India’s northern and western borders, after Pakistan launched a coordinated wave of drone attacks targeting military infrastructure across 26 locations, ranging from Leh in the north to Sir Creek in the south. Several of the targeted sites included key airfields, forward military bases, and civil aviation facilities. India successfully repelled each attack.
Multiple explosions were heard over Srinagar this morning, around 6 am. Simultaneously there have been reports of at least three explosions at three Pakistani air bases.
India on Wednesday, under the codename ‘Operation Sindoor’, unleashed 24 missiles in 25 minutes on nine terror bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in response to the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 people. In the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, it foiled Pakistan’s attempt to engage a number of military targets across 15 cities in northern and western India using drones and missiles.
