STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Eleven-year-old twins were born minutes apart and died minutes apart. They were among those killed last week as India and Pakistan traded strikes in some of the worst fighting in decades. The twins' family is still trying to figure out how to tell their father that they're gone. NPR's Omkar Khandekar reports in Indian-held Kashmir. And we'll advise you, his report includes sounds of artillery.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS CRUNCHING)
OMKAR KHANDEKAR, BYLINE: Forty-year-old Sarfaraz Mir (ph) walks us over broken glass down the lane.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS CRUNCHING)
KHANDEKAR: The walls of the homes here are blackened from fire. Their doors and windows shattered. We stop next to a bike burnt to its bones.
SARFARAZ MIR: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: Mir says this is where his cousins, the 11-year-old twins, died. It happened just a few days ago when India launched a military retaliation to the killing of 26 Indian tourists by gunmen in late April. India blames Pakistan for the attack. Pakistan denies this.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)
KHANDEKAR: We are in Poonch. This sleepy town is in Kashmir, a Himalayan territory divided between India and Pakistan. Poonch lies on the Indian side by a river that flows downstream into Pakistan. That proximity meant it bore the brunt of fighting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARTILLERY SHELLING)
KHANDEKAR: For most of last week, shells from across the border were landing on houses, vehicles and open fields. Around dawn, one struck the lane near the home of twins Zain Ali (ph) and Urwa Fatima (ph) and exploded, just as the twins were trying to get into a relative's car to flee Poonch. Their neighbor, Tariq Mahmood (ph) watched it happen from his window.
TARIQ MAHMOOD: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: He says the twins were thrown in different directions and died shortly afterwards. Their father Ramiz Khan (ph) was badly wounded. His relative rushed him to the hospital. When the father regained consciousness two days later, the cousin Mir says he asked about his kids.
MIR: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: His wife, Adiya Khan, told him they are OK. They are safe.
MIR: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: Then she stepped out of the room and could not stop crying, Mir recalls. We tried to contact Adiya, but we were told that she is in no state to talk.
The afternoon the twins died, they were buried in their ancestral village, Chaktro.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROOSTER CROWING)
KHANDEKAR: It is nestled in a grassy meadow between mountains, six miles from Poonch. It's where they were born and raised, another cousin, Pervez Aftab (ph), says.
(SOUNDBITE OF KEYS UNLOCKING LOCK)
KHANDEKAR: Aftab takes us to their house. It's mostly empty, but the family portraits are still hanging in the hallway.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: Another relative says the kids did not want to move to Poonch. But a few months ago, their parents had rented a two-bedroom house in town so the kids could study in a prominent English-language school there. They were both teachers. They cared a lot about their kids' education.
PERVEZ AFTAB: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: Aftab says nobody wants to leave a place this idyllic - a cottage in the mountains with a vegetable garden and a barn for your buffalo, but it was a sacrifice they were willing to make.
Omkar Khandekar, NPR News, Poonch.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELYSIAN SPRING'S "BLUE SANDS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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