It is very painful to recount the sad story of victims of Pakistani shelling and firing across the LoC and the International Border. Our Government claims that it adequately compensates the sufferers of firing on the border. The Government made repeated announcements that persons who were wounded by cross border firing would be given free medical treatment in Government hospitals. This tall claim is falsified when we make a probe into the wounded cases. Our field staff has interviewed some of the persons who lost their family members owing to enemy firing and who were maimed and rendered handicapped. The reports are that either no medical assistance has been given to them or if given it is so meager that it makes mockery of the claim made by the Government. Some of the wounded people had to be taken outside the State for treatment and they had to incur a fairly big amount for that purpose which they could not afford. However, some neighbours and relative raised donations and the affected people sold their household belongings to raise adequate funds to meet the expenditure on medical support. The Government did no make any clear cut rules of how much financial assistance would be given to the affected people if they were to be shifted to a hospital outside the state.
We strongly suggest that the Government should clarify its position in regard to what quantum of medial aid it has approved for the people of the LoC or IB when they are affected by the enemy shelling. Losses they suffer are of several kinds, human losses, injuries of various kinds, destruction of houses and cattle, destruction of standing crops and granaries etc. Government must take all these aspects into consideration and frame clear cut rules of the quantum of assistance in such cases.
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