Crossing LoC only choice; better to die once than every minute, say PaK brides

Srinagar, May 14 (KNS): Scores of brides from Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK), who married to men from this side of Kashmir who had crossed the LoC for arms training but settled out there and started earning a living, are today in state of great shock and distress. They have now decided to cross the LoC along with their children and go back to their roots citing that the J&K government ignored them on all fronts leaving them choked.

At least 550 families returned to Kashmir under the Rehabilitation-cum-Surrender policy announced by the then chief minister Omar Abdullah in 2010. However, soon after they landed here, the wives and the children of Kashmiri youth who came via Nepal and other routes, were confronted with multiple problems and today situation reached a point where many of them stand divorced by none other than those who brought them here.

“We never thought we are arriving in a hell. We never got identity and our children were labeled as Pakistanis and denied admissions in schools. Now today, the situation has reached a stage where majority of us have been divorced by our husbands and we are living illegally and against the rules of Islam in our inlaws’ houses,” said Zeba, a resident of Tangdhar area of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district.

Zeba had crossed over to this side along with three children and husband in year 2011 from Nepal route under the policy announced in 2010.

“Firstly, I faced tremendous hardships as I was not able to speak or understand what my inlaws were saying. Somehow, I coped up, but my children were denied admission in schools and my husband was not given any job in government or private sector as they were dubbed as Pakistan trained militants,” said Zeba. “My husband couldn’t not earn anything and developed mental ailment and divorced me.”

She said that she was living in her former husbands’ house illegally and against the principles of Islam. “I am a divorcee and yet living in my former husbands’ house. Is that fair,” she said. “Now if GoI continues to ignore me, I will take my kids along and cross the LoC and go back to Muzafarabad.”

Zeba is not alone. Her friend Posha, a resident of north Kashmir’s Kuwpara area had a similar ordeal to narrate. “My husband divorced me last year and I am living with my former mother-in-law along with three children on humanitarian grounds,” she said. Her husband, according to Posha, is taking medicines for psychological disorder as he didn’t get job or couldn’t start his business making it difficult to take the responsibility of his wife and kids.

“We will soon take a final call about crossing over to PaK. Let Indian army shoot us down, it is better to die once rather than dying every single moment,” she said. Many other PaK brides have a similar story to narrate. (KNS) 

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