Jammu: Zain Ali and Urwa Fatima, 12-year-old twins, like every other day, had returned from their school, finished homework, had dinner and fallen asleep. But sometime around 1:15 a.m., their world began to unravel.
“They called their uncle in Jammu and said, ‘Maamu, can you come pick us up?’ There is a lot of blasts going off here’. They were scared,” said their aunt Maria Khan. She choked on her words as she spoke because that call would be the last time their voices were heard.
A few hours later, around 6:30 a.m., their uncle reached the children’s house in Poonch to evacuate them. The family had already packed. Urusa (their mother) held Urwa’s hand, while Rameez (their father) held Zain’s. They had to walk a few meters down the lane to the car. But as they stepped out of the house – directly opposite Christ School where the twins studied in Class 5 – hell opened up.
A bomb exploded right behind their house. Urwa died on the spot. Her body was torn apart by shrapnel. Urusa could not find Zain in the chaos. He had been hurled several houses away, his stomach torn open and intestines exposed. A stranger tried to press on his chest to keep him alive. But it was too late.
“She left five minutes before him. Urwa was born five minutes before Zain and died five minutes earlier,” Maria whispered.
Their father, Rameez Khan, lay unconscious and bleeding for over 30 minutes before being rushed to the hospital. Splinters had pierced his liver and rib cage. The family transported him from Poonch to Rajouri, then to Jammu. As he now lies recovering in a hospital bed, he still believes his children are at their grandparents’ house. “One of these days, he would want to talk to them. Whom will we call? What will we say?” said Maria.
What the Khan family did not know when they woke to the sound of shelling was that India had just launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ – a retaliatory air strike deep inside the Pakistan’s territory following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack. Pakistan responded swiftly with heavy shelling near the Line of Control (LoC).
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri confirmed in a press briefing, “During heavy shelling along the LoC, a shell fell behind Christ School in Poonch and exploded near the home of two school-going children. Unfortunately, both died, and their parents were severely injured.”
He went on to describe Pakistan’s retaliation on May 7 as “the deadliest”, with 16 civilians killed, including children.
What is left unsaid in official briefings, however, is how civilians like the Khans received no warning.
“We were not told anything. There were no sirens. No alerts. Not even a phone call. If the district administration had just told us, we would have left. Maybe our children would still be here,” Maria said bitterly.
As Maria and her husband Sohail now alternate between hospital visits and paperwork, they are grappling with more than just grief.
“We do not just want compensation. We want safety. Basic safety. Bunkers. Ambulances. A trauma care hospital. What kind of war are we fighting if we cannot protect our children?” said Sohail.
At present, bunkers exist in some border villages, but not in towns like Poonch. “We support our country, we understand the need to fight terrorism. But we are citizens too. Don’t our lives matter? Aren’t we human?” asked Maria.
On May 8, Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah visited the grieving family in the hospital and announced a Rs 10 lakh compensation for each person killed. But for Maria, that number means little.
“You cannot put a price on children. Even if they give us money, who will explain to my sister how to live without her children?” she said.
Urusa, who remains under medical observation, is barely eating or speaking. “She is too broken to articulate her pain. She stares into space. Sometimes, she calls out to Urwa. Sometimes to Zain,” Maria said.
Rameez, a government school teacher, had moved closer to the children’s school just a year ago. “He wanted the best education for them. That dream killed them,” said Maria.
The final rites were performed the same day. The twins were buried together. Maria did not stop replaying those final moments. “It is not just the explosion. It is the silence that came after. The questions. The waiting. The lies we now tell Rameez.”
As she looks around the hospital, at the other injured families, Maria shudders at the new reality. “Even if one of them had survived… even just one…”
“We lost two children within minutes of each other. The world moved on. But for us, time stopped at 6:30 a.m.,” she added.
In Poonch, there are no sirens. Only echoes. And the haunting memory of two pairs of shoes left by the door – never to be worn again.