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Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s residents rush to build bunkers

NEELUM VALLEY (PAKISTAN) — Residents in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are racing to build underground bunkers for the first time since the 1990s, frightened by what they say is the worst cross-border violence since a ceasefire was agreed on in 2003.

NEELUM VALLEY (PAKISTAN) — Residents in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are racing to build underground bunkers for the first time since the 1990s, frightened by what they say is the worst cross-border violence since a ceasefire was agreed on in 2003.

Months of tension between India and Pakistan have erupted into shellings and gunfire across the disputed Kashmir frontier, claiming the lives of dozens of people, including civilians.

People in Azad Kashmir’s Neelum Valley say the attacks come once or twice a week, and they never know when they might have to dive for cover.

Ms Chand Bibi has concrete and steel rods waiting to be transformed into an underground bunker where her terrified family can take shelter as the monstrous boom of shelling reawakens old nightmares.

“You are talking about fear,” said the 62-year-old. “We are near to dying at the moment we hear the boom. The voice of the guns is horrible.” When it comes, Ms Bibi and her relatives pile blankets, quilts and clothes on top of their children to muffle the noise and their panic.

Soon the extended family of about 20 people will be able to flee underground to the bunker they have paid 300,000 Pakistani rupees (S$4,080) to build — slightly less than the cost of constructing a mud house in the valley, where the average worker makes about 800 rupees a day.

Mr Sultan Ahmed is spending even more: Up to 500,000 rupees for a 3m by 4m space reinforced by more than 20cm of concrete, fortified with steel rods, and buried under nearly a metre of soil. Some 25 people will be able to take shelter inside the bunker once it is completed, said the teacher.

Local mason Ghulam Hussain tells AFP his business has increased because of the renewed violence, as he packs his tools after finishing a bunker at one house to rush to another.

About half a million people live within range of Indian fire along the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, the de facto border that has divided the Himalayan region since 2003.

Kashmir is one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints, bitterly divided between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in 1947 but claimed by both.

They have fought two wars over the region, but years of relative peace after the 2003 ceasefire were shattered in September, after India blamed Pakistani militants for a raid on an army base that killed 19 soldiers.

On Tuesday, armed militants stormed a major Indian army base near the frontier with Pakistan, killing seven soldiers in the most audacious such attack since the September raid.

Since AFP’s visit, the Neelum Valley has been cut off.

Cross-border firing hit a civilian bus there on Nov 23, killing at least nine people, one of the highest one-day tolls since the latest unrest began. In response, the authorities shut down the main road connecting the Azad Kashmir capital of Muzaffarabad with the valley, effectively sealing it off from the rest of Pakistan with no word when it will be reopened.

Before the valley was closed, many residents told AFP they could not afford to leave and had nowhere to go. Others, however, said they refused to be driven away.

Those who cannot pay the high cost of transporting bunker materials from Kashmir’s main cities to the remote valley are fortifying their homes in whatever way they can. “We are just placing sandbags to reinforce the front walls,” said 65-year-old widow Zarina Bibi, head of a family of 15. “We are in a state of fear all the time. We don’t know when the Indian troops will start shelling again.” AFP

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