Kashmiris want more points to open along LoC

Residents of this hamlet on the heavily-militarised frontier dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India have pleaded to be allowed to cross a shallow stream to assist their quake-stricken relatives on the other side--and to help mourn their dead.
"It is my last wish to cross over to that village and console my friends and relatives," said 96-year-old Lal Din, sitting on a cot and pointing across the brook to quake-ravaged Sajiwar village in Azad Kashmir.
"They have suffered more than us and my people are very eager to go there and help them in rebuilding their homes and lives," said Din.
"They (villagers) say we might get a chance to visit them."
"The best thing would be to allow us to visit Sajiwar in the morning and return in the evening," said Hussain.
For now, however, villagers separated by the LoC have only been able to offer each other a dose of moral support.
While survivors in Sajiwar offer prayers before burying their dead, their relatives on the Indian side line the mountain ridge and pray with them.
"As the mosque in that village announces more deaths and more burials, we line up for prayers on this side," said Din, who has many friends and relatives in Sajiwar.
"This is the only way to mourn their deaths. Our childhood friends are there. Our blood relations are there. But we can't visit each other even at the time of grief," said Din, whose village was one of the worst-hit on the Indian side.
More than 400 houses in Charunda and Batgra, built precariously along a ridgeline of a huge mountain, have been either destroyed or damaged.
The villagers have been living in makeshift sheds made of tin, wood and polythene sheets or in a few tents provided by the Indian army.
"I have been feeding my children corn boiled in water for the past two weeks," said Anwar Bibi.
The 28-year-old pale and weak-looking Bibi said no one from the civil administration had visited their village.
"Had the Army not come to our rescue we would not have survived. They pulled out the dead and treated our wounded," she said.
The two villages lost nearly 50 people to the killer quake.
The tremor also damaged drinking water lines, which have still to be restored.