‘We want a permanent solution’: Fear and fatigue in Kashmir after ceasefire

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir — On Saturday greeting astatine Fateh Kadal, a densely packed neighbourhood connected the sloping embankment of the Jhelum stream successful Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir’s largest city, 62-year-old Hajira wrapped a fabric scarf with a brownish paisley plan astir her shoulders.

With her look muscles tense and sweat beading crossed her precocious lip, she sat connected the cement level of a government-run grains store.

“Can you marque it quick?” she called to the idiosyncratic manning the store.

Hajira comes to the store each period to taxable her biometric details, arsenic required by the authorities to unafraid the merchandise of her monthly quota of subsidised grains, which her household of 4 depends on.

But this clip was different. The past fewer days person been unprecedented for residents of Indian-administered Kashmir. Drones hovered overhead, airports were unopen down, explosions rang out, radical were killed successful cross-border occurrence and the portion prepared for the anticipation of an all-out war.

“He made maine basal successful the queue,” she said, flinching from genu pain, referring to the store operator. “But there’s uncertainty around. I conscionable privation my stock of atom truthful I tin rapidly return. A warfare is coming.”

Then, connected Saturday evening, Hajira breathed a suspiration of relief. United States President Donald Trump announced that helium had succeeded successful mediating a ceasefire betwixt India and Pakistan.

“I convey Allah for this,” Hajira said, smiling sheepishly. “Perhaps helium understood that I didn’t person the means to endure the fiscal hardship that a war-like concern would person caused.”

On Sunday morning, Trump went a measurement further, saying successful a station connected his Truth Social level that would effort to enactment with India and Pakistan to resoluteness their longstanding dispute implicit Kashmir, a portion some countries partially control, but wherever they each assertion the portion the different administers.

Political expert Zafar Choudhary, based successful the metropolis of Jammu successful confederate Indian-administered Kashmir, told Al Jazeera that New Delhi would not beryllium blessed astir Trump’s statement. India has agelong argued that Pakistan-sponsored “terrorism” is the superior crushed for tensions betwixt the nuclear-armed neighbours.

However, “Trump’s connection underlines the information that Kashmir remains cardinal to India-Pakistan confrontations”, Choudhary said.

And for Kashmiris, the anticipation stemming from the fragile intermission successful warring betwixt India and Pakistan, and Trump’s connection to mediate talks connected Kashmir, is tempered by scepticism borne from a decades-long, hopeless hold for peace.

A Kashmiri household watches arsenic projectiles alert implicit the entity successful Indian-administered Kashmir, Saturday, May 10, 2025 [Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo]

‘Never been much frightened’

Hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris stood successful the nonstop enactment of occurrence betwixt India and Pakistan successful caller days.

As the neighbouring nations launched missiles and drones astatine each other, communities successful Indian-administered Kashmir adjacent the de-facto borderline with Pakistan besides witnessed cross-border shelling connected a standard unseen successful decades, triggering an exodus of radical towards safer locations.

The shadow of conflict has stalked their lives for astir 4 decades, since an equipped rebellion archetypal erupted against the Indian authorities successful the precocious 1980s. Then, successful 2019, the authorities scrapped Indian-administered Kashmir’s semi-autonomous presumption amid a immense information crackdown – thousands of radical were imprisoned.

On April 22, a brutal attack by gunmen connected tourists astatine Pahalgam near 26 civilians dead, shattering the normalcy critics had accused India of projecting successful the disputed region.

Since then, successful summation to a diplomatic tit-for-tat and rocket exchanges with Pakistan, the Indian authorities has intensified its crackdown connected Indian-administered Kashmir.

It has demolished the homes of rebels accused of links to the Pahalgam attack, raided different homes crossed the portion and detained astir 2,800 people, 90 of whom person been booked nether the Public Safety Act, a draconian preventive detention law. The constabulary besides summoned galore journalists and detained astatine slightest 1 for “promoting secessionist ideology”.

By Sunday, portion a consciousness of jubilation swept done the portion implicit the ceasefire, galore radical were inactive cautious, doubtful even, astir whether the truce brokered by Trump would hold.

Just hours aft some countries declared a cessation of hostilities, large explosions rang retired successful large municipality centres crossed Indian-administered Kashmir arsenic a swarm of kamikaze drones from Pakistan raced crossed the airspace.

Many residents raced to the terraces of their apartments and homes to seizure videos of the drones being brought down by India’s defence systems, a way of agleam reddish dots arcing crossed the nighttime entity earlier exploding successful midair.

As portion of the exigency protocols, the authorities turned disconnected the energy supply. Fearing that the debris from drones would autumn connected them, residents ran for safety. The surge of drones done the nighttime skies besides touched disconnected sirens, triggering a consciousness of dread.

“I don’t deliberation I person ever been much frightened before,” said Hasnain Shabir, a 24-year-old concern postgraduate from Srinagar. “The streets person been robbed of each their life. If the prelude to warfare looks similar this, I don’t cognize what warfare volition look like.”

A radical of Kashmiri women hold for proscription to permission the country aft overnight shelling from Pakistan astatine Gingal colony successful the Uri district, Indian-administered Kashmir, Friday, May 9, 2025 [Dar Yasin/AP Photo]

A fragile ceasefire

Hours aft the ceasefire was announced connected Saturday, India accused Pakistan of violating the truce by shelling borderline regions. Residents crossed large towns successful Kashmir were connected their toes, erstwhile again, aft drones reappeared successful the skies.

One of the worst-affected places successful Kashmir these days is Uri, a picturesque municipality of pear orchards and walnut groves adjacent to India’s contested borderline with Pakistan.

The colony is surrounded by majestic mountains done which the Jhelum stream flows. It is the last frontier connected the Indian-administered broadside earlier the hills pave the mode to Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Parts of Uri saw aggravated shelling, forcing the residents to permission their homes and look for safety. On May 8, officials told Al Jazeera that a woman, Nargis Bashir, was killed successful her car arsenic she and her household tried to fly the borderline region, similar thousands of others, aft flying shrapnel tore done the vehicle. Three of her household members were wounded.

Muhammad Naseer Khan, 60, a erstwhile service serviceman, was huddling successful his country erstwhile Pakistani artillery occurrence deed a adjacent subject post, with metallic shrapnel shards blasting done the walls of his house. “The blast has damaged 1 broadside of my home,” Khan said, wearing a accepted bluish garment and a tweed coat.

“I don’t cognize if this spot is adjacent liveable,” helium said, his agleam bluish eyes betraying a consciousness of fear.

Despite the ceasefire, his 2 daughters and galore others successful his household who had near for a relative’s house, distant from the disputed border, are sceptical astir returning. “My children are refusing to return. They person nary warrant that guns won’t roar again,” helium said.

Suleman Sheikh, a 28-year-old nonmigratory successful Uri, recalled his puerility years erstwhile his gramps would speech astir the Bofors artillery weapon stationed wrong a subject garrison successful the adjacent colony of Mohra.

“He told america that the past clip this weapon had roared was successful 1999, erstwhile India and Pakistan clashed connected the icy peaks of Kargil. It is simply a accepted content present that if this weapon roared again, things are going to get excessively bad,” helium said.

That’s what happened astatine 2am connected May 8. As the Bofors weapon successful Mohra prepared to occurrence ammunition crossed the mountains into Pakistan, Sheikh felt the crushed shaking beneath him. An hr and a fractional later, a ammunition fired from the different broadside deed an Indian paramilitary installation nearby, making a agelong hissing sound earlier striking with a thud.

Hours aft Sheikh spoke to Al Jazeera for this report, different ammunition landed connected his home. The rooms and the portico of his location collapsed, according to a video helium shared with Al Jazeera.

He had refused to permission his location contempt his family’s pleas to articulation them. “I was present to support our livestock,” Sheikh said. “I didn’t privation to permission them alone.”

Unlike the remainder of the Kashmir Valley, wherever pome cultivation brings millions of dollars successful income for the region, Uri is comparatively poor. Villagers mostly enactment unusual jobs for the Indian Army, which maintains ample garrisons there, oregon workplace walnuts and pears. Livestock rearing has turned into a fashionable vocation for galore successful the town.

“We person seen the firsthand acquisition of what warfare feels like. It is bully that the ceasefire has taken place. But I don’t cognize if it volition clasp oregon not,” Sheikh said, his look downcast. “I commune that it does.”

People locomotion astatine a unfastened market, a time aft the ceasefire betwixt India and Pakistan successful Srinagar, successful Indian-administered Kashmir, Sunday, May 11, 2025 [Mukhtar Khan/AP Photo]

‘How agelong indispensable this continue?’

Back successful Srinagar, residents are dilatory returning to the bushed of their regular lives. Schools and colleges proceed to stay closed, and radical are avoiding unnecessary travel.

The scenes of racing drone fleets successful the skies and the accompanying blasts are seared into nationalist memory. “Only successful the evening volition we travel to cognize whether this ceasefire has held on,” said Muskaan Wani, a pupil of medicine astatine Government Medical College, Srinagar, said connected Sunday.

It did, overnight, but the hostility implicit whether it volition past remains.

Political experts property the wide scepticism astir the ceasefire to the unresolved governmental issues successful the portion  – a constituent that was echoed successful Trump’s connection connected Sunday, successful which helium referred to a imaginable “solution concerning Kashmir”.

“The occupation to statesman with is the governmental alienation [of Kashmiris],” said Noor Ahmad Baba, a erstwhile prof and caput of the governmental subject section astatine the University of Kashmir.

“People successful Kashmir consciousness humiliated for what has happened to them successful the past fewer years, and determination haven’t been immoderate important efforts to triumph them over. When there’s humiliation, determination is suspicion.”

Others successful Indian-administered Kashmir expressed their choler astatine some countries for ruining their lives.

“I uncertainty that our feelings arsenic Kashmiris adjacent matter,” said Furqan, a bundle technologist successful Srinagar who lone gave his archetypal name. “Two atomic powers fought, caused harm and casualties astatine the borders, gave their respective nations a spectacle to watch, their goals were achieved, and past they stopped the war.

“But the question is, who suffered the most? It’s us. For the world, we are thing but collateral damage.”

Furqan said his friends were sceptical astir the ceasefire erstwhile the 2 countries resumed shelling connected the evening of May 10.

“We each already were like, ‘It is not gonna last,'” helium said, “And past we heard the explosions again.”

Muneeb Mehraj, a 26-year-old nonmigratory of Srinagar who studies absorption successful the bluish Indian authorities of Punjab, echoed Furqan.

“For others, the warfare whitethorn beryllium over. A ceasefire has been declared. But erstwhile again, it’s Kashmiris who person paid the terms – lives lost, homes destroyed, bid shattered,” helium said. “How agelong indispensable this rhythm continue?”

“We are exhausted,” Mehraj continued. “We don’t privation different impermanent pause. We privation a lasting, imperishable solution.”