Where are Bunkers, Camps, ask Shell-Shocked Residents

Anger among border dwellers as admn fails to assuage safety concerns

It is chaos everywhere in the forward areas as the administration has failed to instill confidence in the border dwellers facing the horrors of firing and shelling from across the border.
People are living in extreme fear with no surety of their safety but the administration appears nowhere in sight to alleviate their sufferings or to provide them with the basic amenities like bunkers.
When a shell exploded here on Tuesday on the house of Marha Ram, three members of his family were killed on the spot. Ram, who was among the four injured, died on way to the hospital hours after the incident.
Locals have claimed that it took the ambulance three hours to evacuate the injured. “If the ambulance had arrived on time, we could have saved the life of Marha Ram and his daughter Anju Devi, who had come to her father’s house to celebrate Bhai Dooj festival. But for three hours, we were kept waiting,” said Ram’s neighbour Yashpal (50), who along with other villagers was trying to calm down the family after the tragedy.
Anger is brewing up among border dwellers over the continuous shelling from the Pakistani side and the step-motherly attitude of the government towards them. The anger was visible when relatives of those killed in the shelling yesterday didn’t allow mediapersons to enter the house and talk to the family.
“We were promised five-marla plots at safer places and told that bunkers would be built in the village where people could seek shelter in at the time of shelling. But none of these promises has been kept. Neither the administration nor the leaders who came to seek votes at the time of elections and got elected came to our rescue,” said Bihari Lal, an elderly villager. “Everyone is coming to get political mileage out of this incident. Mediapersons are coming here to increase the TRPs. We don’t want this, we want action,” he added.
Another villager Krishan Chand said if they were alive, it was due to the mercy of God. “The shelling has been happening since 1947 and we are still facing it. We are alive by the grace of God and our own survival methods which we have learnt over the years. The government has done nothing for us,” Chand said.
Deflating the claims of the administration of setting up migrant relief camps, another villager Tarseem Lal alleged: “There are no migrant camps for us. We haven’t had anyone from the administration asking us to leave the village and live in migrant camps.”
Last year, the government had set up a migrant camp at Government High School in Kesu Manhasan near Rangoor Camp village but this time the school is locked.