Four decades after she moved to India from Pakistan, got married and had six children, Nasreen Akhtar Bi’s life was upended – a case illustrating in one family the fractured history of contested Kashmir.
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Bi, 55, was not caught up in the April 22 attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, when gunmen targeting tourists killed 26 mainly Hindu men. New Delhi blames these killings on its arch-rival Islamabad, which rejects the accusations.
But the furious arguments since that have triggered regular gunfire between their troops along the de facto frontier in Kashmir and sweeping tit-for-tat punitive diplomatic sanctions – including cancelling visas.
Bi and her family, living in the usually sleepy farming village of Salwah in the Himalayan hills under Indian control, were dragged into a bitter quarrel between the leaders of the nuclear-armed nations.
She, her four brothers and four sisters, were detained by police and taken to the border with Pakistan.
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