Lt Col Ankit Sharma
The recent India-Pakistan conflict once again turned the spotlight on the volatile Line of Control (LOC), but in the thunder of gunfire and the echo of patriotic slogans, the suffering of Poonch, a frontier district in Jammu & Kashmir was forgotten.
A City Under Siege
Poonch, lying dangerously close to the LoC, faced relentless shelling on the nights of 08 and 09 May. Civilian homes were destroyed, prominent Gurudwara was hit, schools shut down and essential services taken hit for days. Between 15 to 20 civilians lost their lives (however unofficial figures are much higher), while many more got injured or displaced. Though numbers may appear smaller in the scale of conflict, every life lost is a world destroyed for the families who loved them. Everyone remembers what happened in Pahalgam, national headlines were filled with grief and fury. The government responded swiftly and rightly so. We avenged those who were killed, but what about the people of Poonch? Have we forgotten them?
Displacement and Despair
More than 20,000 people were forced to flee the border towns around Poonch. Entire villages emptied overnight. Families ran with only the clothes on their backs. The labor class, vital to the economy of Jammu and near by cities, vanished without warning. Businesses, construction and farming operations were paralyzed.
No emergency camps were set up.
No compensation was given.
No evacuation assistance was given.
There were No bunkers for the civilians to take shelters.
The silence from the administration in initial days was deafening.
Leadership Absent, Responsibility Ignored
In the moments of National Tragedy, people look to their leaders. But our beloved Prime Minister has not visited the grieved town till date. He made no public gesture to acknowledge their pain, offer condolences or announced aid. This raises a haunting question: Is it acceptable for Jammu and Kashmir to be sacrificed every time tensions escalate on the name of collateral damage, while the rest of the country moves and claims victory?
Such selective empathy creates two Indias- One that receives justice and one that suffers in silence.
A Pattern of Neglect
Alongside Poonch, several other towns in Jammu region – Rajouri, Mendhar, Nowshera also bore the cost of war. Yet the narrative remained centered on strategic wins and retribution. Once again, Jammu and Kashmir became collateral damage in a long-standing rivalry between two nuclear neighbors. This isn’t the first time. And unless something changes, it won’t be the last.
Conclusion
Wars may be fought at borders, but they are felt at homes. The silence around Poonch is not just administrative neglect- it is a national failure of empathy. Every civilian life lost should matter. Every displaced family should be accounted for. Every child traumatized by missiles and drones should be protected, not forgotten.
Until leaders treat the people of Poonch with the same urgency and dignity shown elsewhere, India’s victory will always remain incomplete. A country cannot truly win if its own citizens are left to suffer alone. Poonch didn’t just loose lives- it lost faith and that is the deepest wound of all.
Let’s see in the coming days, our national leadership recognizes the gravity of the situation, visits Poonch without delay, and takes concrete steps to ensure such tragedies are never repeated.
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