Kashmir Villagers Flee as Shelling Surges

Ceaseless artillery fire is creating ghost towns along the 450-mile border that divides Indian and Pakistani portions of the disputed Kashmir region, driving thousands of terrified villagers into the hills.

The thunder and quake of heavy guns shook the earth Tuesday, and their shells crashed into towns across the region as the crisis between the two South Asian nations moved up another notch, suggesting that there will be no quick end to the fighting.

“I have lost everything,” said Ghulam Hussain, a farmer in the Indian village of Dras, which was bombarded Tuesday by artillery. Dras was empty. The village’s livestock had fled in terror, and Hussain sat on the roadside with his suitcase, waiting for anyone to take him away.

“I don’t know if I will ever come back,” said Hussain, who had sent his family ahead of him. “But I must save my life and family first of all.”

The crisis, which began last month with a large-scale infiltration of Pakistani-backed guerrillas into northern India and intensified last week with the beginning of Indian airstrikes, entered a new phase Tuesday. As military planners in India and Pakistan pledged to contain the fighting, civilians on both sides of the border increasingly were sucked into the conflict in a fierce and terrible way.

Pakistani authorities said 10 children were killed when an Indian artillery shell destroyed a school near the Line of Control that divides the two countries in the Kashmir region. In Khondu, India, villagers piled atop buses as Pakistani shells exploded around them. Along the band of mountains where Muslim guerrillas were dug in, Pakistani and Indian artillerymen engaged in furious duels that threw shells into villages on both sides.

Here in Kargil, once a mecca for Himalayan trekkers, Pakistani forces shelled for the 26th consecutive day. Fewer than 500 of the town’s 20,000 residents remained. Many described horrific nights of praying and huddling under beds.

“The shelling is everywhere, every day,” said Mohammed Kazim, a restaurant owner who stayed behind. “We are just sitting in the house, and we hear the big bang. It is so terrible, we just pray to God.”

The violence is the worst seen in the Kashmir region since 1971, when the two nations fought their last full-blown war. The fighting has raised fears that the two states, which tested nuclear weapons last year, could stumble into a wider and more unpredictable conflict.

This week, caretaker Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said the fighting amounted to a “warlike situation.” Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmad vowed that his country will use “any weapon” to defend itself--a barely hidden reference to nuclear arms. Though both sides agreed this week to hold peace talks, the initiative bogged down Tuesday when they could not agree on a date for starting negotiations.

The crisis began in early May when a force of about 600 Muslim guerrillas crossed the Himalayas from Pakistan and seized several Indian positions that had been abandoned during the winter. The guerrillas came to join the insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir, where Muslims are in the majority. The force’s size and arsenal--which included shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles--and the equipment demanded to reach the 15,000-foot terrain suggested that the guerrillas received Pakistani aid.

This week, the fighting has edged upward in intensity each day. India unleashed its Mirage 2000 fighter-bombers to complement other jets and helicopter gunships attacking guerrilla posts. Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said Indian forces had killed about 470 Muslim fighters and Pakistani soldiers. Each side accused the other of launching ground assaults along the Line of Control.

The intensified artillery duels are among the most dramatic developments yet. Indian and Pakistani soldiers in the past have routinely blasted one another from fortified positions along the border, but they usually fire for only short periods and at a limited number of targets. That restraint fell away this week.

Along the mountain highway that connects the hardscrabble hamlets of northern India, many inhabitants said shells fell on their villages for the first time. Pakistani officials often insist that they do not fire on villages in Indian Kashmir, on the grounds that they do not want to kill fellow Muslims. But the shells rained on Muslim-dominated towns across Indian Kashmir on Tuesday.

Many villagers expressed hatred for the Pakistani gunners, but others complained that it was the Indian army that invited the shells down on them by setting up artillery posts next to their towns.