I wasn't there in Pahalgam. But I read several reports - stories that felt like a heavy burden I couldn't shake off. The victims' relatives said the terrorists asked names and religion before pulling the trigger. Those who weren't Muslims were shot.
It wasn't just violence, it was a question of identity. And suddenly, a new wave of rhetoric began to rise, drawing sharp lines across religion and repeating an old tale of division.
I was visiting Rajouri and Poonch when the firing resumed, this time from across the border. Bombs fell without questions. No one asked who you prayed to before blowing off your roof. At Poonch Bazaar, I was outside Mohammad Hafiz's house. Seventeen people lived under one roof, before it stopped existing.
"They did not spare the temple or the mosque or the gurdwara," he told me. He wasn't angry, but tired. "They don't target religion, they target India."
The firing continued all night. It roared through the mountains like a monster without a face. And in the morning, they targeted our city, Poonch - not once, but relentlessly. Thirteen of our people died. Fifty people were wounded.
I've never witnessed something like this. I can't help but remember Atal ji's words. He had said: "This issue must be resolved once and for all." And truly, we are fed up now. Tired of waking up to the fear of death, wondering whether our children will see another day.
And on the morning of May 8, Pakistan did it openly. They did not see the religion. They did not target a Hindu or a Muslim or a Sikh. They targeted India. They targeted the Akhara in Geeta Bhawan too. And then they talk about Kashmir.
Kashmir is ours. This country is ours. This army is ours, not their father's. And now, the only solution is to unite both sides of Kashmir.
I walked through Sindi Gate, Ward 10, through blackened bricks, cracks walls and smoke. But what lingered most wasn't the smell of destruction, it was brotherhood.
"I just wanted to check, are you okay," Niranjan Singh, a neighbour came running when the bombs fell.
No one asked who was inside the house, but only whether they were safe. Mohammad Sadiq said it was the neighborhood that saved them.
A few kilometres away, in Dingla, I met Khalil Ahmed. He looked worried - that unmistakable anxiety you see in someone who isn't just imagining danger, but living it. He told me he was leaving to stay at his father-in-law's house because residents have been asked to evacuate the area.
Also Read: "We Only Want To Live" - Silent Exodus From Rajouri
"I am scared," he admitted softly. "I have children." But then - in the same breath - he said : "May Allah protect India."
It wasn't said as a political statement. It wasn't for effect. It was instinctive and natural. From the heart of a man whose home might be the next target. From someone who has nothing left to hold on to, except faith, in the land he calls his own.
Here in Poonch, the war is real. The blood is real. The fire, the silence, the debris - it doesn't ask which God you bow to. When the fire came, it was their Hindu and Sikh brothers who helped put it out. The night was filled with the sound of drones - an eerie whirr, slicing through silence. And then shelling.
In Rajouri and Poonch, you don't count hours. You count breaths between blasts.
Yet in the middle of all this, I met men like Mohammad Intekhab Alam, who is not a native to Jammu & Kashmir. As he walked down the road with a bag, his parents back in West Bengal called him. They cried over the phone, begging him to come back.
He looked at me and said: "If we live, we'll earn again." When I asked if he would return someday, he said: "Why not sir? This is my country."
Another person, Dilbar Alam from Bihar's Kishanganj, also readies to leave because of pressure from home. But he promised to return. "The people here are good. I'll come back to work," he said.
When Additional District Development Commissioner Raj Kumar Thapa stepped out of his government accommodation at 5.30am, he found a shell. His house was damaged, his car was destroyed.
Also Read: After Ceasefire, A Haunting Question From J&K
Let us say this out loud - yes, there is an atmosphere of war-mongering in the country, there are questions about the ceasefire agreement. But watching war on television while sipping tea in cities far away from the borders is a different thing.
Sitting in a studio and turning conflict into noise and rhetoric is a different thing.
Holding debates on religion is one reality. But when bombs fall along the border, they don't ask who you are. They don't ask which God you believe in. They only see that you are an Indian. Thus, you become a target. For those living along the Line of Control, this is not politics; it is life and death. Their roofs are burnt, windows broken, children buried.
When I returned from Rajouri, the contrast hit me like a wave. On my way back, the dhabas near Delhi were buzzing with songs and the air was filled with the smell of buttery parathas. There was laughter at the airport. In Bhopal, people were seen sipping tea at the corner of streets, the children were jogging, the sky was clear.
I wondered if the sound of bombs were softer the farther you are away from the border? Does the pain fade with the distance? Or is it that we don't want to listen?
I keep asking myself - what kind of a country do we become when blood unites us but peace keeps us apart?
(Anurag Dwary is a Resident Editor, NDTV)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
