Mohammad Iqbal was working the nightshift at a power plant when he got a frantic call from his family saying artillery shells were exploding around their home.
“I told them all to hunker down in one room together on the ground floor and hopefully things would become okay by morning,” he told CNN.
But dawn brought no relief from the shelling that would continue for four days as India and Pakistan fought their most intense conflict in decades, raising fears of an all-out war.
Iqbal, 47, lives near the town Poonch in India-administered Kashmir, a stone’s throw from the de-facto border with Pakistan, an area of pine-clad foothills and flowery meadows, backdropped by towering, icy peaks.
But the idyll is illusory – Kashmir is one of the world’s most militarized regions and the trigger for multiple wars between India and Pakistan, who both claim the territory in full but control only in part.
Last week the nuclear-armed neighbors traded missiles, drones, and artillery shelling for four days following a massacre of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month that New Delhi blamed on its neighbor, which Pakistan denies.
Two hours after the firing started last Wednesday, Iqbal got news his brother-in-law’s home had been hit.
The shell had exploded at a nearby water tank, obliterating windows and sending shards of glass flying, hitting his brother-in-law and niece.
What followed was a frantic scramble to get the wounded to the nearest hospital.
“As people started evacuating there were a few people in the village with cars so people just poured into whatever vehicle they could find,” Iqbal said.
“For a few hours it was difficult to locate everyone. People got split up. But finally at the hospital my family came together.”
There, he found his brother-in-law, who works as a policeman, critically wounded and medical staff struggling to treat the influx of casualties.
Iqbal’s brother-in-law survived. But two of his neighbors did not.
Pakistan said on Tuesday that 40 civilians had been killed and 121 wounded in Indian firing, and that 11 members of its armed forces had been killed. India has previously said 15 civilians were killed and 59 wounded and that it had lost five soldiers.
For the roughly 15 million people living in the contested region, the latest bout of hostilities has appeared to push a political solution for their home further away than ever.
But the immediate concern in both sides of Kashmir is how long the skies will stay quiet.
“There is an uneasy calm here,” Amir Choudhary, 25, from the town of Akhnoor in India-administered Kashmir told CNN on Sunday, hours after the ceasefire came into effect.
“Markets are open again and some people who had left have slowly started coming back,” he said.
“There still is that anxiety about what might happen when night comes,” he added.
On the other side of the Line of Control, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Saima Ashraf shared those feelings.
“Uncertainty still prevails,” she said. “Many believe it (the ceasefire) is not a permanent solution.”
Others are unclear about when they can return to their homes and villages.
“Many of them are waiting to see how the situation develops before making a decision about returning,” Akhtar Ayoub, a local administration official in Pakistan’s Neelum Valley, told Reuters.
Raja Shoukat Iqbal, who lives near the de facto border, described the ceasefire as “essential for the people of Kashmir” who he said were paying a high price on both sides of the divide.
“This peace was also necessary on the international level because both countries are nuclear powers, any mistakes or anger of any country could cause the deaths of two billion people,” he posited.
