Pulling logs and dusty building materials from a storage bunker outside his home in Kashmir, Riaz Awan readied the underground space to house his family as they braced for clashes between Pakistan and India to reach their border village.
Kashmiris living on both sides of the de facto border — the Line of Control — have been caught in the barrage of shells and bullets for decades as the nuclear-armed archrivals fight over the disputed region.
The long history of clashes has pushed many residents to build bunkers for shelter should their homes be caught in the crossfire.
“We’ve endured cross-border firing, which has been a tough experience, and we don’t want our children to go through the same,” Awan, a 51-year-old farmer, told AFP as he and his children cleared the bunker that had until recently stored straw.
In Chakothi village, around three kilometres (two miles) from the Line of Control, there are around 30 bunkers for a community of 60 families overlooked by Indian army check posts atop the surrounding green mountains.
A militant attack last week killed 26 people in Indian Occupied Kashmir, the worst attack on civilians in a Muslim-majority region in a quarter of a century.
India blamed the attack on Pakistan and accused it of “cross-border terrorism”, a charge Islamabad vehemently denied.
