R.S. Pura (Jammu): The bustling settlement of Arnia and a chain of border hamlets along the Indo-Pak border now wear an empty look, with over 40,000 villagers abandoning their homes to escape heavy shelling by Pakistani forces.
Arnia town, with a population of 18,000, resembles a ghost town with only a few people left each in its adjoining hamlets to take care of animals and guard homes.
Farming, schooling, cattle rearing and everything else on which border dwellers survive have come to a halt due to the shelling episodes.
Villagers at the forefront of Pakistani shelling say they feel they are in a war zone with sounds of mortar bombs and rattle of automatic weapons booming in the area. In the hamlets, devastation is visible all around — blood stains on the floor, broken windows, injured animals and splinter marks on the walls.
Some families that had initially decided to hold on to their homes have finally decided to move after intense shelling.
After heavy cross-border shelling for over two days, 80-year-old Yashpal and his family finally decided to leave their home along the India- Pakistan border on Saturday.
On Friday night, the situation got worse and two shells hit our house and damaged it, he said.
“It had happened during the 1965 and the 1971 wars. Such large number of mortar bombs had not since fallen in Arnia,” he said.
