Barely a couple of kilometres from the Line of Control (LoC), the Palanwala market has got special attention from the Pakistani artillery. Almost every building on either side of the narrow street is pock-marked by shrapnel hits.

Facing the Chhamb area across the LoC, the shelling from Pakistani 82 mm mortars rarely stops in Palanwala. It has not for the past three years.

While the Indian Army says there are 200 to 250 persons still living in the town, villagers say not more than 50 are there. Some more shelling and they too will leave. The Army says 1,800 persons have migrated from Palanwala.

Standing with a group of relatives in her shrapnel-scarred home, Satya Devi bites back tears and talks of the death of her 21-year-old son on June 5. Jagdev Singh was sitting in a shop in Pargwal sector, close by, and was killed when a Pakistani shell landed and burst.

“The firing from the other side reaches our homes. There is never a moment when there is no shelling. I have lost my only child. Only a war will solve this problem,” she says.

Palanwala is the only sector where the LoC enters the plains. During the last months, Pakistani defences have been fully occupied, their Army has reinforced its weakness and firing has increased dramatically.

The Pakistani strike corps — 11 Corps and a portion of 1 Corps — is 10 km away from the Indian side but its spread backwards is huge, says Maj-Gen Sudhir Sharma, General Officer Commanding of the Palanwala garrison.

Sitting in his heavily camouflaged headquarters, 4 km from the LoC, General Sharma feels that one of the signs of de-escalation will be when people return to the town. For that to happen the Pakistani defences have to withdraw and firing must go down. That has not happened so far.

In Mendhar sector on the LoC, the cry for a war to end the problems that locals are facing is even more shrill.

“Give Kashmir away or “Aar ya paar kar do” (have a conclusive war with Pakistan). Enough of this misery,’’ says Dayal Singh. If the bombing was not bad enough, militants had started crossing over and troubling the people, he added.

Six-year-old Ruksana’s face was scarred by a splinter from a Pakistani shell on June 7. In the shelling that hit Sagra village, her mother was killed and her sister badly injured. Her uncle, Mohammad Idris, who has to hold her protectively all the time told reporters that the Pakistani shelling was destroying his family one by one.