Operation Sindoor: One year on, Poonch has a plaque for its dead, few bunkers for its living

A year after Operation Sindoor, the border district of Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir is still tending its wounds and still waiting for the bunkers that were promised years ago.

Fourteen civilians died here during the cross-border shelling that followed India’s strikes on Pakistan last May. Theirs were, in many ways, the most avoidable deaths of the entire episode. Many of them were killed not inside their homes, but while fleeing because there was nowhere safe to hide.

In 2018, the Narendra Modi government allocated Rs 415 crore for the construction of 14,460 bunkers across the Jammu division – individual shelters near homes for specific families, and larger community bunkers for entire villages. What came of this commitment? To find out, Newslaundry visited four border villages last year: Mandhar in Poonch, and Lam, Pukharni, and Ladoka in Rajouri. Not one of them had enough bunkers for its population. 

One year later, the picture is nearly the same in many parts. 

In Pukharni village in Rajouri, sarpanch Mahmood says his panchayat has 509 households and just 287 bunkers – it needs roughly 200 more. And this is a concern reiterated by sarpanchs across several more villages near the Line of Control.

‘Primary demand has always been bunkers’

In Karmada village, sarpanch Mohammad Sharif says residents were forced to evacuate during Operation Sindoor because the bunkers ran out. Seven or eight houses were damaged in the shelling. “Living close to the border means living in constant fear,” he says. “Constant anxiety about your family’s safety. Our primary demand has always been for bunkers. Yet no new bunkers have been built in the village since 2019.” His village has 500 households. Only 200 have access to a bunker, he says.

Parvinder Singh, the sarpanch of Degwar village, says that after Operation Sindoor, officials were approached repeatedly. “We are not afraid of war,” he says. “We fought alongside the Army in 1965 and 1971. But our one desire is that our children remain safe. That is why we present a singular demand to every official and elected representative who visits our village: provide us with bunkers.” Degwar has around 3,800 residents in 832 households. Back in April 2019, the village wrote to the Deputy Commissioner of Poonch asking for just 70 individual bunkers and 6 community ones. That letter has never been acted upon, he says.

Qasba village, with a population of around 5,000 in roughly 900 households, has 12 community bunkers and three individual ones – a combined maximum capacity of 300 people.

In Poonch town, two new bunkers have been constructed: one at the deputy commissioner’s office and one within the Dak Bungalow complex, though the latter is unfinished. Ahmed Jameel, the sarpanch of Qasba, says: “The two new bunkers that have been constructed are meant for officials. Not a single bunker has been built for the general public.”

In November 2025, a proposal to build over 5,000 bunkers was submitted for approval. To ask for an update, Newslaundry reached out to Poonch Deputy Commissioner Ashok Kumar Sharma on the phone and sent him a list of questions. A questionnaire was also sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs. This report will be updated if a response is received.

The dead and their families

For the families of the 14 civilians killed in the shelling, the past year has felt less like 12 months and more like a single, frozen moment – the moment an explosion changed everything.

Vihan Bhargava was 13 years old. He died in a moving car.

His father, Sanjeev Bhargava, had spent the previous night listening to sounds that didn’t feel like routine shelling. In the morning, he found shell splinters outside his door. He called his brother-in-law, Gurmeet Singh, and they agreed to leave together. At 11 am, both families set out: Sanjeev’s wife Rashmi, their son Vihan, Sanjeev’s sister and Gurmeet’s wife Anjubala, and their 14-year-old son Rajvansh. Both boys were seated between the adults.

Ten minutes and six kilometres later, a shell exploded nearby. Splinters tore through the car. Gurmeet Singh suffered severe injuries to his right leg. His wife was struck in the shoulder. Rajvansh was hit in his right arm and head – two splinters still remain lodged there; he has had three surgeries and still cannot lift his right arm. Rashmi lost 70 percent of the hearing in her right ear.

Vihan died at the scene. A splinter had struck him in the head.

Gurmeet Singh spent nearly three months in a private hospital in Amritsar after being referred from Poonch to Jammu and then onward. He has had four surgeries on his legs. He still cannot walk without support. The government has provided Rs 5 lakh in compensation and another Rs 5 lakh as a fixed deposit. But the family has spent approximately Rs 45 lakh on treatment over the past year. 

Vihan’s family received a total financial assistance of Rs 16 lakh, and Rashmi was offered a job in the Education Department. A plaque bearing the names of the dead has been installed at the Ajote War Memorial in Poonch, but Sanjeev remains unsatisfied. 

“I simply want a civilian memorial to be built in honour of those who lost their lives in Poonch…He was my only child. What would I do with money or a job? For whom would I do it?”

“In his 13 years of life, we never let him suffer even a single scratch,” he says. “Even on that day, I seated him between my sister and myself inside the car to ensure his safety; but then, an explosion occurred, and a splinter struck him in the head while the car was still moving. My child was snatched away from this world in an instant.”

“Before launching Operation Sindoor, the government should have ensured the safety of its citizens. At the very least, we should have been informed that war-like conditions were imminent so that we could have taken measures to protect ourselves. Instead, the government launched Operation Sindoor under the cover of night, and in retaliation, Pakistan claimed the lives of innocent people in Poonch.”

Zain and Urva Fatima were twins. They were killed while their family was trying to flee. They had barely left the house when a shell landed nearby and the blast consumed everything around them. Both children died instantly. Their father, Rameez, was critically wounded – injuries to his liver, ribs, and back, and multiple blood transfusions to keep him alive.

While Rameez was fighting for his life in hospital, his wife Arusha made the most devastating decision of her own: she buried their children without telling him. She was afraid that the shock might kill him too. He didn’t find out for nearly three weeks.

Rameez’s sister-in-law, Mariam, watched what the grief did to him afterwards. “Since that day, no one has seen Rameez smile. A deep melancholy constantly clouds his face, and he speaks to no one.” Rameez had moved his family from their ancestral village of Chandak to Poonch town so his children could get a better education. Since May 7, he has not returned to Poonch town even once.

Mariam Khatoon was six years old – the youngest victim of the shelling. She was sitting inside her home on the morning of May 7 when a shell landed close by. The blast critically injured her and her eight-year-old sister, Iram. Mariam died on the spot. Iram survived, but her recovery has been slow and uncertain. Her father, Javed Iqbal, says: “She forgets things very quickly. We pray that, somehow, she makes a full recovery.”

Javed’s account captures what so many families in Poonch share: “For one, we had no inkling that such a massive attack would be launched from the Pakistani side. Secondly, our home lacks a bunker where we could have taken shelter. We were left with no option but to face death.”

The government provided the family Rs 16 lakh in compensation and offered Javed a job in the Animal Husbandry Department. His real concern is different. "Safety comes first. At that time, many officials and politicians visited, promising to construct bunkers before they left; yet, to this day, no bunker has been built."

Amrik Singh was a ragi – a hymn singer – at a local gurdwara in Poonch. On the morning of the shelling, he was walking home from the gurdwara, alerting everyone he passed to seek shelter. He got his own family safely into the basement. Then he noticed it needed cleaning and went back upstairs to get a broom.

An artillery shell landed just outside the door. Shrapnel tore through him.

His daughter, Japneet Kaur, recalls what came next: “After Amrik Singh was injured, we waited a considerable time for an ambulance to arrive. When it finally came, it was a small vehicle in which two injured individuals had to be stacked on top of one another to be transported to the hospital — where he subsequently passed away.”

The government provided the family a total financial assistance of Rs 16 lakh and offered his wife a Class IV position in the Agriculture Department at around Rs 23,000 a month. His wife describes the arithmetic of survival: “My younger daughter resides in Jammu, where the cost of living alone amounts to Rs 15,000 per month. My elder daughter is studying in Surankote, and her annual expenses total Rs 2.5 lakh. How can we possibly manage all of this with such a modest income?”

She still flinches at rumours of conflict. “If only the government would provide us with bunkers; at the very least, we could save our lives.”

Japneet has a harder question. “When we launched Operation Sindoor to avenge the Pahalgam attack, what will be done now to avenge the incident in Poonch? Does the government have any operation that can bring my father back? No, right? So, who exactly benefits from this war?”

Mohammad Akram was a daily-wage labourer. On the evening of May 6, he came home from finalising the date of his daughter Afreen’s wedding. The next morning, a shell exploded outside their home. Akram was killed. Afreen was severely burned as she tried to save Akram.

The family has received similar financial assistance along with a government job. The wedding has been postponed. Afreen has not recovered from the trauma. Her mother, Farida, like every other family in this story, says the same thing: she hopes the government will build them a bunker.

When the media called a victim a terrorist

One name from Poonch’s dead deserves particular attention – not least because of what was done to it.

Qari Mohammad Iqbal, 47, was a teacher at Jamia Zia-ul-Uloom, a local Islamic school where he taught children. He was killed in the cross-border firing.

Within hours, several Indian news channels reported something entirely different. News18 India and CNN-News18 claimed he was affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba and had been killed in an Indian airstrike in Kotli, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. A senior journalist identified him as a “Lashkar commander” who ran “factories of terror”. Zee News displayed a blood-stained photograph of him and labelled him the “NIA’s most wanted terrorist”. Republic TV broadcast similar claims.

The Poonch Police subsequently issued a formal statement: Qari Mohammad Iqbal had no links to terrorism whatsoever. He was a civilian victim of cross-border shelling.

Nearly a year on, the world has moved on from Operation Sindoor. Poonch has not. Here, time is still frozen on the night of May 7 – the night many people died looking for shelter that didn’t exist and still doesn’t.

“When, finally, will death come for me?” Sanjeev Bhargava asks.

This report was first published in Hindi.

If you value reporting that returns after the headlines fade, support us this Press Freedom Month. Pay to keep news free.