The worry runs deep in Kashmir and other parts of India, which are within the range of Pakistani weapons.
The Indian-controlled regions of Jammu and Kashmir have been under fire by Pakistan since early this week. The wider Indian belt, from Kashmir in the north to the desert towns of Haisalma in the west and Bhuji in the west, is said to be within the range of Pakistani drone and missile attacks.
In Pawnchi, in the Indian government area of Kashmir, six miles away from the Pakistan section and “control”, Narinder Singh, the headmaster of the retired school, said 13 people have been killed since India launched Operation Sindoah on April 22, aimed at revenging victims of terrorist attacks in Kashmir.
Singh said that Pakistani shells had previously fallen in Poonch district, but “this kind of shelling never happened in Poonch town.” Five of his neighbors have been killed by sh shotguns in the past three days, he added. “Even during the war in 1971, I don't remember such artillery fire.”
Singh said the market in his town was closed and there were few people on the streets. “Only some medical and grocery stores are open,” he said. But by Friday, the shelling had been reinforced again, he said, and so was the sense of fear. During the subsequent fire, he added, “people moved into safer homes and learned better how to stay safe, so no one was killed.”
In a metropolitan city on the plains of North India, 12 of them said they were targets of Pakistan's drone and missile attacks on Wednesday night, and no one seemed to have done any harm. The sense of fear is authentic, but ambiguous, and is powered by nationalist press and social media.
In Gwalior, a city in northern India, home to the air base, a private hospital painted the rooftops with a Red Cross on white fields. The North North blackout in Chandigarh, another city with a military presence, was intended to protect the site from air attacks. The measure led to housewife Neha Chaudhary wondering what to tell her two sons.
“A sense of stress creeps into them,” she said.
“I'm refilling food such as rice, lentils and flour. I've withdrawn cash from the bank,” said Ajay Sharma, a physiotherapist in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, which shares a 665-mile border with Pakistan.
The family in New Delhi, 220 miles from the border, is doing the same thing, keeping the gas tanks full too. In response to the anxiety, India's National Oil Company posted that it was well prepared and “no need to panic purchases.”
Technology has changed the perception of risk since the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, and since the country's high-intensity clash in 1999. The nuclear weapons of both countries were then new. And news media were also relatively contained. Currently, information flow and disinformation are constant.
And while the possibility of escalation remains as untested as 26 years ago, the fact that both parties have access to nuclear weapons has become oddly familiar.
“We have full confidence in the military, but we cannot predict what will happen given the situation,” said Dr Sharma, a physiotherapist in Jaipur. “I feel a sense of panic.”
