For thousands of Kashmiri families divided by one of the most heavily militarized borders in the world, this year’s Eid al-Fitr festival offers cold comfort as India-Pakistan tensions flare.
Families split between Indian and Pakistani administered Kashmir have barely seen each other for decades and with peace talks on ice following deadly cross-border attacks, hopes are bleak.
The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two of their three wars over the Muslim-majority Himalayan region, which is claimed by both countries in full, but divided along a Line of Control (LOC).
Eid al-Fitr is a time for new clothes, sweets and giving children money, but for many families, finances are too tight for celebration. Instead they spend the day remembering loved ones across the border.
“I miss my mother, sisters and brother all the time, but especially at Eid,” said Uzhair Mohammad Ghazali, 38, at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the main town in Pakistani Kashmir. “I’ve been weeping for them here, while they’ve been weeping for me there. We have no hope that we’ll be reunited in our lives.”
He fled India’s crackdown against a separatist insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir when he was just 15.
Since arriving in Pakistan, he has married and had six children of his own, but apart from trekking to a border crossing to stare at them through the barbed wire, he has not seen his family again.
Sometimes the families speak by telephone and Ghazali saw his sisters after Eid al-Fitr last year when they stood on opposite banks of the river next to the Tetwal crossing point and stared at each other.
Thousands of people have been killed since rebel groups rose up against Indian troops in 1989, fighting for independence for Kashmir or a merger with Pakistan.
This year, Eid al-Fitr comes with India under mounting domestic pressure to delay indefinitely proposed peace talks with Pakistan after five Indian soldiers were killed in a cross-border attack on Monday.
India says specialist Pakistani troops were involved the killings and has hinted at stronger military action.
Pakistan denied involvement in the attack.
A flare-up along the LOC in January, in which two Indian soldiers were killed, brought stop-start peace talks to a halt.
The low-level talks had only just resumed following a three-year hiatus sparked by the 2008 Mumbai attacks that claimed 166 lives.
Khwaja Ghulam Rasool, 50, lives in Garkot village on the Indian side in the Uri sector, near the LOC. His brother, uncle and their families live right across the de facto border on the other side.
They met for the first time in 30 years after a bus service started between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, but frequent visits are increasingly difficult, he said, because it takes up to six months to process repeat permissions to travel on the bus.
“We live across a bloodied line of bad luck that has divided my family. The fresh incidents on the border unfortunately strengthen this divide,” Rasool said.
He said the sadness at separation is much worse at Eid al-Fitr, “when the urge to be together and meet freely is at the greatest.”
“All I pray for, all the time, is that India and Pakistan come together so that this line just vanishes,” he said.
In Pakistani Kashmir, there are 15 camps housing 34,747 registered refugees, who each get a stipend of 1,500 rupees (US$15) a month, government refugees official Nabeel Qureshi said.
Nasima Bibi, 50, arrived in 1992 with her husband, two daughters and one son, but left behind her eldest son as he was away staying with his grandparents when Indian troops came to their village.
“Indian forces launched a crackdown in our village. They arrested my husband, tortured him and broke his arm,” she said crying. “We were terrified and fled in darkness. We reached Pakistani Kashmir in three days. We hid during the day and traveled during the night. We did not wait to treat my husband’s broken arm and that’s why my son was left behind.”
Her son is now 33 and married with children. She saw him at Tetwal three years ago, but could not get through on the telephone during the holy fasting month of Ramadan that ends with Eid al-Fitr.
“How can a mother celebrate Eid without her son? I’ve missed him very much every time,” Bibi said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of