No respite for Kashmir, even as tensions decrease

NEW DELHI -- When tensions spiked last week between India and Pakistan, mortar shells started falling in Aijaz Ahmad's village. For hours, he lay awake listening as the two countries shelled each other across the line that divides the disputed region of Kashmir. Some of the mortar rounds damaged nearby houses, while another fell in a market.

“Anyone can pay with his life,” said Ahmad, 35.

For villagers living near Kashmir's dividing line, the fact that Pakistan and India have taken steps back from the brink is a temporary relief. In this region that is at the heart of the conflict between India and Pakistan, residents have endured three decades of insurgency and cross-border firing with no end in sight.

Last week, India and Pakistan engaged in titfor-tat airstrikes and an aerial dogfight for the first time since 1971. They also fired mortar rounds at each other across the frontier that divides the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Such firing is not uncommon, but it intensified after India targeted what it said was a militant training camp inside Pakistan with an airstrike on Tuesday. Since then, at least eight people have been killed and more than a dozen injured on both sides of the line in Kashmir.

Tensions between the two countries began to subside when Pakistan announced Thursday that it would release the Indian fighter jet pilot it had captured in the clash a day earlier. The pilot returned home Friday night. A train service between the two countries, suspended during the hostilities, is set to resume Monday.

But even as the fear of outright war recedes, no one expects calm at the place where India and Pakistan face off on a daily basis: the 460-mile long unofficial border in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control.

“When you can't go to war, you have to vent your anger somewhere,” said Happymon Jacob, the author of a recent book on clashes between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. Both countries use the Line of Control as a “venting mechanism.”