Villagers tell BBC they survived shelling in Indian-administered Kashmir

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Villagers tell BBC they survived shelling in Indian-administered Kashmir

Aamir Peerzada

Reporting from Indian-administered Kashmir

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BBC

Badrudin said he was forced to flee Salamabad overnight as shells hit his village

In the village of Salamabad in Indian-administered Kashmir on Wednesday morning, ruined homes were still smouldering.

This small settlement lies close to the Line of Control which separates Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the scene of rapidly escalating tensions in recent weeks that led to strikes from India on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Tuesday night.

The streets of Salamabad were almost completely empty the next morning. Locals said the village was struck by Pakistani shelling.

Most of the residents had fled the bombardment, leaving chickens pecking in their cages in gardens.

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Bashir Ahmad, a local shopkeeper who witnessed the destruction, told the BBC that around 02:00 local time (20:30 GMT), “while we were fast asleep, a loud explosion jolted us awake.”

“Mortar shells had landed near a water dam, and by 03:00 more shells struck several houses, setting them ablaze.

“The government issued no warning or advisory about the cross-border shelling, and we have no safety bunkers to take shelter in.”

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Bashir Ahmad was one of the few people left in Salamabad

Salamabad is no stranger to this kind of shelling: until 2021, incidents of cross-border fire were reported regularly.

However, a ceasefire agreement signed between the militaries of both countries saw the number of attacks sharply decrease.

Life returned to normal for most, free of fear – that was, until Wednesday morning.

Uncertainty now hangs over the villages scattered along the Line of Control once more.

Mr Ahmad estimated that only a handful of Salamabad’s 100 or so residents had remained, the rest having left in search of safety from what he described as the most intense shelling in years.

In the village, two homes had been torn apart by mortars.

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Through a hole in the wall of one house, some crockery had remained impossibly upright on a shelf – while everything else around lay shattered or burned.

The small homes were no match for the scale of the firepower they encountered overnight.

They had been entirely hollowed out by explosions and fire, their tin roofs buckled above them.

At a hospital 40km away, Badrudin said he was injured in the shelling, along with this eight-year-old son and sister-in-law.

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He identified one of the destroyed houses in a picture as his.

He said: “We were all in deep sleep when… a mortar shell landed near our homes. The children were also asleep.”

“The shelling was intense, we somehow managed to flee.”

Badrudin said he had taken out a loan of ₹3 lakh ($3,540 ; £2,653) to build his home in Salamabad.

“Everything is gone now,” he said. “We’re too afraid to return.”

He continued: “Rebuilding the house will be incredibly difficult—we need the government to step in and help.

“We want peace, not war.”

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