Biro Devi (40) ecstatically shows a bunker built next to her one-room house in her village, overlooking the Pakistan border in Jammu’s Kathua. Constructed in 2022, she uses the structure meant to protect the family from cross-border firing as a kitchen and a storeroom these days.
For the past three years, her village has not seen any shelling from Pakistan.
“Till three years ago, there was uncertainty. The firing would start particularly during the harvest season. We had to spend nights in school. Our children missed school. The bunker’s construction started in 2021 and it was completed in 2022,” said Ms. Devi.
In February 2021, after India and Pakistan agreed for re-observance of the 2003 ceasefire agreement, cross-border firing and shelling have reduced drastically along the border.
Social schemes
At Pansar village in Kathua, dominated by the Scheduled Caste community, the administration has ensured that there is a saturation of social schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
The village is part of the Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency that will go to polls in the first phase on April 19.
Kiran Devi (29), another resident, said the last time the village was shelled by Pakistan was in 2020.
“I have been living here for the past seven years. Earlier, there was incessant firing from across the border. Even our room was damaged in the shelling. The government constructed bunker for us,” said Ms. Devi as she cooks rice on wood in a room made of bricks which had no roof and door.
The Pakistan border has largely remained silent since February 25, 2021, when the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGsMO) of India and Pakistan agreed to a “strict observance of all agreements, understandings and ceasefire along the Line of Control [LoC] and all other sectors.”
Six violations
In 2023, at least six ceasefire violations were reported along the Jammu border and a Border Security Force (BSF) personnel was killed as the Pakistan Rangers resorted to “unprovoked” firing at Samba on November 9.
Before India and Pakistan agreed for re-observance of the 2003 ceasefire agreement in February 2021, as many as 72 incidents of ceasefire violations were reported from the Jammu border. In 2020, the number of such violations stood at 450 and in 2022, six such incidents were reported.
On February 14 this year, there was cross-border firing at the RS Pura sector in Jammu.
Central scheme
In 2017, in the wake of repeated firings and killings of civilians, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) approved ₹415 crore for construction of more than 14,000 bunkers in Kathua, Samba, Jammu, Rajouri and Poonch districts. These included 1,431 community and more than 13,000 individual bunkers.
Baldev Raj, a labourer said, “there was firing at least twice in a month. We had to leave our homes and run for cover. For the past three years, there is no such tension. I can sleep peacefully with children at my home.”
India’s 3,323-km border with Pakistan runs along four States — Jammu and Kashmir (1,225 km which includes 740 km of Line of Control), Rajasthan (1,037 km), Punjab (553 km) and Gujarat (508 km). While the 740-km LoC, the effective border in Kashmir Valley and parts of Jammu are under the operational control of the Army, the 192-km International Border (IB) in Jammu, which is a settled border, is manned by the BSF.
