THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For an average Malayali sitting in his house, over 3,000 km away from the scene of conflict, Pakistan’s heavy shelling in Jammu and other areas may be a visual effect to be watched on TV screens.
But ask Jini, a Malayali housewife who had been living in Jammu for one-and-a-half years.
She has seen the ferocity of life-threatening attacks from across the border towards innocent human beings.
Jini was living with Simon, a flight engineer at the Air Force station quarters in Jammu till Friday, five-year-old daughter Jewel, and Simon’s mother Jenova.
“The Pakistan military started heavy shelling on Thursday night from across the border,” Jini told TNIE over the phone from New Delhi.
“From around 7.30 pm on Thursday we could see heavy gunfire over our quarters. It was repeated twice in intervals of 10 minutes. It lasted for around two hours. And we were all panicked. Hence, we decided to return to Kerala till normalcy returns to the valley,” she said.
Their daughter Jewel is studying in kindergarten.
“There was a complete blackout in Jammu region because of Pakistan shelling,” she added.
Jini, her daughter and mother-in-law, along with other family members, boarded a train to New Delhi and reached Kerala House where the state government had opened a control room to help stranded families, students and tourists.
The family will board a train to Alappuzha, their native place, on Monday night hoping that everlasting peace will prevail in the valley and Jammu.
