Living on the edge, two border village families shattered

RS PURA/ARNIA/SAI KHURD: People huddled around Shakandhya Devi at a relief camp in RS Pura town let her cry aloud when an urn containing the ashes of her husband’s mortal remains were shown to the woman on Monday.

She and daughter Shilpi have been weeping intermittently, since a Pakistani shell exploded near Ghar Singh in the crop fields of their village, Bera, close to the border on Saturday.

Marginal farmer Singh had gone to the fields to rescue the family cow from the mortar shells. Splinters from one such deadly munition cut him down.

The father of three sons and a daughter was cremated by Saturday afternoon and the family left for RS Pura town to escape the relentless Pakistani firing.

The sole breadwinner of the family was among a dozen people, including soldiers, killed in the shelling since Thursday.

Singh’s eldest son Rakesh lit the pyre on Saturday, with mortar shells and bullets flying overhead. “Our father died for the country. This government provides jobs to stone pelters and kin of terrorists. Can’t any of us get a government job to sustain our family?” asked the jobless man. He continued in a trembling voice: “We are marginal farmers; we do farming for others. Can ₹1 lakh compensate a human life?”

Nearly 15km from the camp, another family mourned the death of a beloved mother — 50-year-old Bachno Devi of Sai Khurd village in Arnia. Bachno had opened the door of her house hearing husband Jeet Raj screaming in agony. He was hit by a shell in the verandah on Friday morning. But as his wife opened the door, a shell exploded near her. She was killed instantly. “Shrapnel hit my mother’s neck,” said Devi’s son Ravi Kumar, who was wounded too. The family with a small land holding has three daughters and two sons. Eldest son Babu Ram, 21, and Ravi Kumar have passed their Class 10 finals, but are jobless. “We pray to the government to provide us a government job,” Babu Ram said. HTC