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'We watched them dying. We were helpless'

Twenty minutes before the blue skies rained death and destruction, the Nambla high school in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri sector was teeming with students, all ready to take their exams. But headmaster Habibullah had a premonition.

"Leave," he told the students, "I sense trouble."

The students demurred, but finding Habibullah very serious, they emptied out of the school hall.

Seconds later the first artillery shell from across the border landed on the building, shattering its foundation and spraying shrapnel. Habibullah's prenomination had come true.

More shells were to follow within minutes, landing all over the picturesque village of 10,000, killing three and starting an instant migration on that morning of July 30.

Now, a fortnight later, the exodus has started to reverse. There is a trickle of traffic, a very thin one indeed, to the village -- a few families, among them a journalist, the first to visit the village after the incident.

Fear is palpable as you enter Nambla Uri after a bone-jarring journey and a three-km trek up the mountains. Many of the buildings are damaged.

"There are no medical facilities, no road link to this village. Everybody has forgotten us," says Raja Abdul Hamid, "On July 31, we cried for help after a barrage of shells hit the village. One shell landed on the house of Atta Mohammad, killing two and injuring three."

Had there been an ambulance the injured could have been saved. "We watched them dying. We were helpless," says Hamid, "We prayed for a brief lull that afternoon. But..."

But there was no respite. Shells continued to burst, and the three wounded died where they lay.

The incident, however, has brought some good. Thanks to the intervention of the local army commander, Brigadier R P S Malhan, the state administration is now keeping an ambulance ready at the village. Also, the army is planning to construct some underground bunkers and bomb-shelters where the villagers can take cover. But it would welcome some help from the civil administration, the brigadier says.

Malhan adds that this was the first time that Pakistan has targeted the villages of Rampur, Boniyar, Bandi, Mabla. "They want to keep the Kashmir issue alive," he remarks.

"The shelling has shattered our confidence. We never had a problem before," adds Mohammed Hussain, a villager, " Even during the 1971 war, our village was peaceful."

Asked about the Indian army's reaction to the incident, an army officer says, "We did retaliate. We cannot sit and see people getting killed."

The villagers have a pile of complaints against the state administration. "No minister or official has bothered to visit us," fumes Tanveer, a school teacher, "It was only the army who was here to help us."

Tanveer and a handful of his students have a mission these days. They sit under a walnut tree, their eyes fastened on the adjoining hill across the border, watching for anything that may shatter this sleepy village yet again.

"We have to be extra-careful today," he says, "because Habibullah, the headmaster who saved us on July 30, has gone to attend a meeting."

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