Lost Boys of the Line of Control

By BETWA SHARMA

Up in the mountains, a hushed stillness has descended on Dalaunja, the last village bordering the Line of Control, which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Still, the open wounds of conflict haunt its crisp air on a sunny day. For more than a decade, this village simmered in the battle between the Indian Army and the militants. Dalaunja acquired a notoriety of sheltering insurgents coming from Pakistan.

As the conflict escalated in the 1990s, young men from the village crossed over to the portion of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan. The Indian government contends that several of them went to train as militants. But their families insist that they fled to escape the relentless harassment by Indian soldiers.

Since the fighting ebbed more than a decade ago, aging parents have been waiting for their boys to come home. “Or one chance to see them again,” said Ali Akbar, 90, whose two teenage sons left almost 20 years ago.

Neighbors recalled that Mr. Akbar took care of all his children after his wife died early. His 50-year-old daughter, Sonia Akbar, described how he used to strap milk around his chest to feed her younger brothers. Mr. Akbar, now weakened by illness, huddled close to the crackling firewood while his daughter tucked his frail frame into a thick blanket. “I never thought I would be without my boys in my last days,” he said.

Inhabitants of this secluded terrain endure hardships stemming both from conflict and nature. Those who perished in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, including members of the Akbar family, are buried in modest graves around the village. “You can't control death,” said Mr. Akbar. “But my soul is dead even as I breathe.”

The villages around the Line of Control, or L.O.C., are choked with tales of separation. In recent years, the Indian government has tried to find ways of uniting families, but progress has been slow because of the persistent air of suspicion between India and Pakistan, especially after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, as well as other logistical difficulties. For instance, the Indian government doesn't have exact records of how many people crossed over, how many of them became militants or who could still pose a threat.

“It is fundamentally difficult to have a policy on people who left illegally, in view of the complexities involved,” said Madhukar Gupta, a retired home secretary. “But genuine efforts have been made to soften the Line.”

Mr. Gupta said the Indian government sees greater people-to-people contact from both sides as a long-term investment in peace. This expectation led to initiating barter trade between India and Pakistan across the Line of Control in 2008. The skeletal mountain roads, once isolated, are now jammed with strikingly decorated trucks coming from as far away as Balochistan.

Since 2005, the government has been running a bus service across the Line of Control so that divided families can meet. Locals say that state-issued travel permits are mostly granted to families that split up during the 1947 partition. Government officials insist that these permits are for everyone, but they consider people who left during the 1990s more of a security concern, which leads to lengthier verification procedures.

“No doubt, there are bureaucratic hurdles on both sides,” said K. Skandan, joint secretary for Kashmir in the Home Ministry. “There is also lack of publicity so people don't have the correct information about such schemes especially in remote areas.”

There are currently over 12,000 Indian applications pending on Pakistan's side and more than 8,000 applications from Pakistan pending on the Indian side. Mr. Skandan said that Pakistan's processing of travel applications was so excruciatingly slow that India had to slow down as well. “We have to maintain a balance of people coming and going,” he said.

Some returnees come home without any kind of permit. Mohammed Aslam Mir, who left Dalaunja in 1990, decided to return to India after having had no contact with his family for nearly a decade. He never heard that his father had died during that time. Mr. Mir, now 37, was the only one of five brothers to go away. “I had seen people being beaten up by the army and I was scared,” he said.

Mr. Mir described how Kashmiris on the other side gave food and shelter to the men who arrived. “I have no words to describe their kindness,” he said. The Pakistan government also gave them 1,000 Pakistani rupees ($11 at current exchange rates) monthly. But Mr. Mir was determined to return. “My life is my family - maybe because I was so spoiled being the youngest,” he said. “My heart had no choice but to risk going back.”

So in the summer of 1999, Mr. Mir stood at the edge of a narrow ravine that separated the Pakistan si de of Kashmir from Dalaunja village. Home was a short walk away. But Mr. Mir didn't want to sneak in illegally. He shouted to the villagers to find someone at the nearest army post. “I was told to raise my hands and walk slowly toward them,” he said. “And then I surrendered.”

After being kept under surveillance for three years, Mr. Mir was issued a card that allows Kashmiris living near the Line of Control to move about freely. Mr. Mir explained that it was easier for him to return because he had consciously avoided putting down roots on the other side, staying unmarried and jobless. “People want to come back, but they can't displace their entire family,” he said. “That's life.”

In 2010, the Indian government announced a policy to allow “misguided youth” to return with their families. So far, only 17 families have returned under this program. More people are slipping back illegally across the Indo-Nepal border. The authorities have identified 42 such cases, and they know that more people are making their way back. Even illegal returnees, if not considered a direct threat, are being allowed to assimilate into the mainstream.

The Indian security forces are not happy with the 2010 policy, criticizing this leniency on the grounds that the government is jeopardizing security in its haste to achieve normalcy in Kashmir.

Mr. Skandan from the Home Ministry argued that people bent on stirring up trouble will slip into India, with or without such a policy. “You cannot have any policy with zero risk,” he said. “But having a return policy is important because it gives people trying to come back psychological relief that they will be welcomed.”

Braj Raj Sharma, the Jammu and Kashmir home secretary, said that “it had been made very difficult” for potential returnees on the Pakistan-controlled side to get travel papers. “It was felt for various reasons that people were not being able to approach the Indian High Commission,” he said, adding that the Indian side had received reports of militants threatening retribution against those who wanted to leave. “We're trying to work around it.”

The matter, however, has not been taken up with Pakistan through official channels.

Mr. Skandan pointed out that Islamabad cannot openly block India's international policy, but it could curtail people's movements. The senior official, however, was more concerned that the returnees could be at risk because they may be persecuted by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's spy agency, and Pakistani militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba for wanting to return to India.

Until villagers can move freely over the Line of Control, they will have to take solace in the small ways they have bridged distances.

Naseema Abbasi, 32, was 10 years old when her father, now 60, left. “The army people threatened him night and day,” she said. “Otherwise, who in their ri ght mind leaves their family?”

Then her mother died in the 2005 earthquake. Mrs. Abbasi now lives with her husband and five siblings in Urusa village, which touches the Line of Control.

On the day she got married, nine years ago, Mrs. Abbasi got a big surprise. She described how a sudden commotion disrupted the ceremony and everyone ran to the edge of the village. In the distance, across the Line of Control, stood their father, who had come to glimpse his daughter's wedding.

“We don't know how he did it, but it was wonderful,” said Adil Abbasi, his 22-year-old son. “He was crying, and then we were crying.”