Hundreds of AJK families relocate as Indian ceasefire violations continue along LoC

Hundreds of families living in the most vulnerable areas along the restive Line of Control (LoC) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir were reported to have moved to the rear areas, officials and residents said, as three more civilians were wounded on Wednesday amid unrelenting ceasefire violations by Indian troops.
Samina Bibi, 25, and her 3-year-old daughter Kanwal were injured in Manda village and Nasreen Bibi was injured and a mosque was damaged in Ghee Kot village of Khilana sector in the early hours of Wednesday, said Ahmed Raza Qadri, AJK minister for civil defence. Khilana is located towards the right of Chakothi-Uri crossing point at the heavily militarised LoC that splits the disputed Himalayan region between Pakistan and India. Residents said the exchange of heavy fire continued in Khilana, Chakothi and adjoining areas throughout the night and also on Wednesday in intervals.
Shabbir Ahmed, a resident of Chakothi, said his was among many families from the town which had moved to Hattian Bala or Muzaffarabad.
He said only those families had stayed back which had concrete bunkers built within or along their houses.
Officials said the federal government had sanctioned a scheme for construction of community protection bunkers in the vulnerable areas along LoC.
In 2018, a total of 678 such bunkers were built under the supervision of the Pakistan Army out of the planned 926. Work on the rest is under progress, officials said. Qadri claimed that the morale of the people living along the LoC was very high and a vast majority of them did not want to leave their homes. “However, we have requested the people inhabiting the most exposed areas to move back until the situation improves,” he said. According to him, as many as 61 families from different villages of Chakothi had quit their homes and 21 of them had been accommodated in the buildings of two educational institutions in Hattian Bala. Elsewhere, he said, 18 families in Bhimber district and 12 families in Kotli district had also been relocated in government buildings. Source: dawn.com