No peace to perform even last rites

As residents in this border village in Samba silently gathered in the compound of one Kishan Chand on Thursday to perform last rites of his sister and another relative killed in a neighbouring village by Pakistani shelling, a girl’s cries filled the air.

“Where is my mom? Where has my papa gone? Where are my brother and others,” 16-year old Suman screamed as people tried to console her in vain. “I have lost my world. I don’t want to live,” Suman wailed before she fell unconscious. 

Suman lost her mother and grandmother on Wednesday after Pakistani shells rained on her house in neighbouring Chalyar village. Her father, Boti Ram, brother and two other family members also received fatal injuries. However, Suman had a providential escape as she wasn’t present in the house at the time of the disaster. “She had come to her paternal home a day before.

 Till today morning, she didn’t know about the tragedy,” Krishna Devi, panch (village representative) of Kank, told Deccan Herald. “Her uncle Kishan Chand and other male members have gone to Samba hospital to get the bodies of the killed women. We decided to perform last rites of the deceased here as our village is relatively safer from Pakistani shelling,” she said .

Hundreds of people from worst-affected villages have taken shelter in school buildings in Kank and adjoining areas.

As people were making preparations for last rites of the deceased in the local cremation ground, an angry youth said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has completely “failed to protect” people from Pakistani onslaught.

“There isn’t peace even to perform last rites of dead. Before elections, Modi used to say he will give a befitting reply to Pakistani aggression. Where has his promise gone,” he asked.