FEROZEPUR/AMRITSAR: Despite worries of possible evictions from their homes in border areas, Punjab villagers Tuesday appeared to be in high spirit after the IAF's pre-dawn strikes at terror camps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Hailing IAF's action, Parkash Singh of border village Chandiwala said, "Jo vi kitta army ne, bilkul theek kita. Sanu vi de do bandookan, asi jake jeet laiye Lahore (Whatever has been done by the Indian Air Force is absolutely right. We request the government to provide us few guns so that we could win Lahore for them).
Kashmir Singh of village Mehdipur said, "It should have been done earlier. It is the right step of the government. It has given a stern message to Pakistan."
Meanwhile, with border area villagers getting wary of possible eviction from their homes amid the escalating Indo-Pak tension, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has decided to camp in border areas for the next three days to reassure them.
Officials said the chief minister would camp in villages as part of the state government's confidence-building measures post the air strikes, officials said.
The chief minister will leave for Pathankot Wednesday morning and will travel by road to villages in border areas and have a night stay at Amritsar, they said.
He would visit the Tarn Taran region the next day and spend the night at Faridkot, before returning to Chandigarh on Friday after visiting border areas of Ferozepur district, they said.
Amarinder Singh decided to visit the border villages even as his Cabinet colleague Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa Tuesday visited villages on international border at Dera Baba Nanak.
Exhorting villagers of Chandu Wadala, Rosa and Dostpur villages not to be afraid of anything, Randhawa assured them of the state government's commitment to their security and welfare.
Though not new to the trials and tribulations of residing in border areas amid the frequent, unsettling experience of relocating, many border villagers could be seen having the worries writ large on their faces.
Several hapless residents of villages situated along the zero line in Punjab seemed apprehensive of being rendered homeless amid the escalating tensions between the two countries.
The residents of Hazarasingh Wala, Rahimke, Tindiwala, Gatti Rajoke and other villages in Ferozepur district, who have faced similar turbulence in the past, appeared concerned over the prospects of bearing the burnt of hostilities between the neighbours.
The marginal farmers appeared more worried as they find it difficult to relocate, leaving their livestock, belongings and the standing crops behind.
"For us, it's like one step forward and ten steps back as each time such a situation occurs, we tend to lose whatever little assets we have created," said Resham Singh of Tindiwala.
"These circumstances are not new to us. We have seen it all in 1965, 1971 besides during the Kargil conflict," he said.
They face frequent relocations not merely during escalating tensions, but flooding of their lands by a swollen Sutlej almost every year.
"We have neither the intention nor the resources to leave this place permanently," said Gurdev Singh, adding they have lived here since ages and would die here only.