CHANDIGARH/SRINAGAR: The 2900-km Indo-Pakistan border from Kutch to Kashmir seemed to have suddenly come alive on Tuesday, soon after the Indian Air Force (IAF) struck home deep across the LoC to take out terror camps embedded in pakistan.
Sonic booms of Pakistan’s fighters had made for sleepless nights along Poonch in Jammu and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan with eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation along the Kashmir Valley getting tense since February 14.
The Valley is agog post the strike and tension is rising along border villages.
Irshad Ahmad of Silikote, the last village on the LoC in Uri, said “tension is sky high. While none have left the village, the common prayer is there should be no war”.
“We’ll be swept away should the two nations clash. We are the front”, he said, even as he and others await the next administrative step. “Would it be evacuation,” he wonders.
Abdul Khaliq, sarpanch said, “People are very scared. And frightened. There is apprehension of war” Along Punjab, the unease is visible.
“The administration could ask us at any time to evacuate, as in 2016. We have to be ready,” said Surjit Singh Bhura, vice president of Punjab Border Kisan Union. In some 220 border villages, people mill around asking each other what to do.
The government has put the border districts on high alert with CM Capt Amarinder Singh reviewing the state’s preparedness.
As a confidence-building step, Amarinder will himself be visiting the border areas along Pathankot to Ferozepur by road tomorrow and is in touch with the union home and defence ministries on the situation, said Raveen Thukral, CM’s advisor