Ferozepur: Life is increasingly going back to normal in the villages located along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab’s Ferozepur district as people start coming back home in the wake of easing of tensions between the two neighboring countries. The return started following a decisive deal dated on the 10th of May that stopped military operations, restored hope in the region which has been on knife edge for weeks.
In the period of zenith of the war, locals from such regions as Gatti Rajoke, Tendiwala, Kalluwala, Nayi Gatti Rajoke, Jallo and Rahime Ke Gatti had to leave their homes in search of safer places. The fear of escalation and noise of nightly chaos had created a thriving atmosphere of panicking, and many people had left in panic taking whatever they could carry.
A person who lives in Jallo Ke village, literally few steps from the International Border Malkeet Singh expressed his cautiously optimistic approach: “People are coming back, and it is as if life returns back to normal, step by step. Remembering the nerve-wracking days, he said “The first few days were sheer terror. We did not know what to expect. Strange noises kept us awake.”
The evacuation cost Tara Singh from Nayi Gatti Rajoke financially and emotionally: “Most people also left after the tensions lifted up. It wasn’t easy. Many spent thousands to transfer their belongings in safer places.
Not everyone fled, however. Gurjeet Kaur, who decided to stay back said, “No one forced me to leave. A few went and lived with relatives, but we trusted the soldiers to protect us”.
“Come on it isn’t, you know, illegal or anything” said a sixteen-year-old Jaswinder Singh from Tendiwala. We did not leave because we were sure that we were safe due to the presence of our security forces.
Now that calm has been restored, these strong communities are doing everything in their power to reconstruct their everyday lives.
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