This Article is From Oct 13, 2014

Inside Arnia, The Village Hit Hardest by Fire from Pakistan

In the last few days, residents of Arnia have been up all night.

Arnia, Jammu: It was not yet 6 am, but dawn meant little for the village of Arnia. It had been up all night, its sleep wrenched by a new round of fire from Pakistan after a 48-hour reprieve.

As the sun climbed, the shelling intensified. Arnia, parts of which touch the border with Pakistan in the Jammu region, is the village worst-affected in India in the cycle of violence that erupted 11 days ago, marking the heaviest fighting in over a decade.

So far, in the last one week, in a series of violations of the ceasefire that was agreed to by India and Pakistan in 2003, five civilians have died in Arnia, where people farm their land for rice right up to the international border.

Preet Pal Singh, a farmer, and his 70-year-old father, waited patiently at a bridge a little outside Arnia. They left their home nearly a week ago. "We were planning to return, but can't move any further than this," Mr Singh said. Nearly 100 other residents of  Arnia were standing around, caught in the same predicament. The new round of shelling on Saturday night meant that the journey back to the homes they had left would require reassessment, and possibly, re-drawing.

As I left this group and drove with our camera-person closer to Arnia, the thudding  "boom" got louder. We were in the arc of Pakistani fire.

In Arnia, we stopped first at the primary health centre, run by the state government. Over the last few days, civilians injured in the shelling have been brought here for treatment. The centre was well-staffed with a doctor and assistants; it was clean and efficient.

Surjit, a resident of a neighbouring village, was rushed to the clinic in in a mine-proof vehicle. "This would be  the 36th person injured that we are treating," said the doctor, Lakshman Bhagat, referring to the violence of the last few weeks.

The firing has been so intense in Arnia that using ambulances to evacuate the injured is not feasible. Instead, officials have been using a vehicle designed to withstand landmine blasts, the type used in Chattisgarh by security forces combatting Maoist insurgents.  

Harbans Lal has become more proficient than he ever wanted or imagined at leaving his house in Arnia. He has left it and returned a few times, trying to move his young children to safety, returning to check on his home during the lulls in shelling. Now, with his two sons hoisted on his shoulders, he once again starts the trek away from his house.

During the 11-year lull in fighting along this stretch of the 198-kilometre International Border, villages like Arnia have been able to modernize to some extent with brick buildings replacing mud huts, and schools opening close to check-points.

But the last few days have Arnia wondering how far it has really come from its troubled past.
.