Locals in Pakistani Kashmir Fear Being the First to Face India’s Ire

Families are reinforcing their bunkers and confirming evacuation plans. Hospitals have stocked up on essential medicines. Schoolchildren are being trained on the essentials of first aid.

All across the Pakistani-held section of Kashmir, there is an air of emergency, a persistent trepidation as the threat of military confrontation looms.

“God willing, nothing will happen,” said Azeem Gilani, a baker in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. “We have seen this before. But if, God forbid, the situation worsens, Kashmiris on both sides will suffer.”

Since a terrorist attack two weeks ago on the Indian-administered side of Kashmir left 26 innocent people dead, Kashmiris have tried to prepare for what seems like an inevitable military escalation between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety, but each controls only a section. The beautiful Himalayan territory has been the main flashpoint of conflict between the archrival nations for almost 80 years.

Soon after the attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India pledged “severe punishment” for the perpetrators and suggested that Pakistan had been involved. In turn, Pakistan claimed that it had “credible intelligence” suggesting an imminent Indian military strike, and its leaders promised a strong response to any aggression.

Kashmiris on the Pakistani-controlled side of the territory fear they could be in the first line of fire. Past conflicts between India and Pakistan have often begun with confrontation along the border between the two sides of Kashmir, known as the “line of control.”

“It is not new for us,” said Tanzeel Ahmed, who runs a grocery store in a village near Athmuqam, two miles from the border. “We have lived through this before.”

Like many in the villages and towns adjacent to the line of control, Mr. Ahmed has reinforced his mud-walled underground bunker, stocked essential supplies and drawn up plans to evacuate if shelling begins. But not everyone in the area has enough money for such precautions.

“Preparing for conflict is not just about fear,” Mr. Ahmed said. “It is about whether you can afford to survive it.”

Many in Kashmir make their living from the tourism industry or related fields. The tourism season would typically have just begun, around the start of May, as temperatures rise farther south.

Official data indicates that over three million tourists visited the region last year. But this year’s prospects are grim.

Local authorities have restricted access to sensitive border areas, significantly reducing the flow of visitors. Many vacationers have canceled their plans. Others have been turned back at security checkpoints. Once-bustling sites, like a popular waterfall known for its tea stalls and photo opportunities, are nearly deserted.

“Tourism is our economic backbone,” said Shahid Chaudhary, a guesthouse owner. “All 42 rooms are vacant, and we’ve had to let our staff go. The losses are devastating.”

In Muzaffarabad, officials have instructed the food department to stockpile emergency food supplies for two months in anticipation of a possible attack by India.

While regular schools have, so far, stayed open, local authorities have ordered hundreds of religious seminaries, known as madrassas, to close for at least 10 days. Officials said the madrassas, which provide Islamic education and teach children to memorize the Quran, could be viewed as militant training centers and targeted by Indian airstrikes, as they have been in the past.

“We were instructed by authorities to temporarily close the madrasa due to the prevailing security situation,” said Muhammad Rafiq, a teacher at a madrasa in Muzaffarabad where 150 children study.

Home to more than four million people, the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir covers about 86,000 square miles and operates under a semiautonomous framework with its own legislature, president, prime minister and Supreme Court. But all election candidates and officials must sign a loyalty pledge to Pakistan, a requirement that underscores the country’s influence over the region’s political structure.

Conflict over the region began in 1947 when Britain divided India, its former colony, into two countries: Pakistan, with a Muslim majority, and India, with a Hindu majority.

Both new countries claimed Kashmir, but the region’s Hindu ruler acceded to India. War broke out. After a cease-fire in 1949, India was left governing about two-thirds of the territory, and Pakistan the other third.

Over the next several decades, Kashmir and its people were deeply scarred by wars between India and Pakistan. As insurgency against India began to rise in the territory in the 1980s, Pakistan stepped in with money and training.

The violence moderated for a time in the 2000s. But political developments over the last few years — and the uncertainty set off by last month’s terrorist attack — could be fostering a revival of insurgency and political disruption, analysts say.

At a central intersection in Muzaffarabad on Monday, a group of activists staged a protest, burning tires to demonstrate their anger at what they called India’s baseless allegations over the recent terror attack, and its threats of war.

“Kashmir, burning across the L.O.C., belongs to Pakistan,” said Mushtaq Dar, a leader of the protest, referring to the line of control.

After the Indian government cracked down on its side of Kashmir in 2019, revoking the region’s semiautonomous status, a wave of protests broke out in the Pakistani-controlled region, as residents feared a similar tightening of restrictions.

That discontent has “evolved into a popular civil rights movement demanding more rights from the central government in Islamabad, achieving tangible gains like reductions in electricity and wheat prices,” said Ershad Mahmud, an expert on Kashmir who recently wrote a book on the politics of identity and resistance in Poonch, a Kashmiri district divided by the line of control.

Raja Farooq Haider Khan, a former prime minister whose region includes villages that have frequently been shelled, said that residents would bring that same attitude to whatever confrontation might come between India and Pakistan. He said that although Kashmiris have always opposed war, they have never shied away from standing up for their rights.

“If war is imposed,” he said, “they will fight to defend their land with unwavering resolve, until their last breath.”