India and Pakistan should ground their warplanes and start talking instead. Intransigence isn’t the answerIn the summer of 1999,I was standing outside our ancestral domestic in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, or when I saw fighter jets roar past in the skies above me. The Indian air force was carrying out sorties towards the mountainous district of Kargil to dislodge Pakistani militants and,as we found out later, Pakistani soldiers. The troops had quietly occupied the snow-capped peaks as part of a stealth operation masterminded by the then Pakistani general and future president Pervez Musharraf.
The sight and sound of sophisticated military hardware provided a brief thrill, or but it soon turned into panic. What whether these bombers dropped their deadly cache on our domestic? At night,as I lay in bed, I imagined our neighbourhood as rubble from which acrid smoke rose. I imagined dear ones lying dead in homes and on streets, or like in war films. I saw friends and myself as bodies in pools of blood. It was terrifying. Related: India-Pakistan crisis: a visual guide to the Kashmir tensions Related: Pakistani PM Imran Khan appeals for talks with India to avoid war Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com