Lagama (Near Uri in Baramulla district of Jammu & Kashmir): Lagama is a small non-nondescript village less than 4 KM from Uri on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad national highway. The terrain is hilly and the entire village of less than 2000 population is perched on the slopes of a high mountain. River Jheelum flows just below the mountains and the Line of Control with Pakistan is just 20 KM from the village.
Lagama occupies a very important place in the current history of Kashmir because of its Kashmiri Pandit population. This village has not seen turbulent days like most other villages with the Kashmiri Pandit population.
The Pandits have stayed in Lagama even during the height of militancy. According to Bharat Kumar Sharma, an old resident of the village and a local Congress leader, less than 10-15 Pandit families left Uri area during the height of militancy in the 1990s.
Three villages near Uri - Lagama, Bandi and Dyari - still have a sizable number of Pandits living there. Bharat Kumar Sharma puts the number of Pandits in the area at 2000-2500.
He said, "We never faced any problem here. It is very close to the Pakistan border. Local Muslims are very helpful and cooperative. Even during the height of militancy, nobody troubled us or asked us to leave."
Sharma has even served as the Chairman of Uri Municipal Committee. He was elected from Lagama on a Congress ticket.
He said, "If the situation was bad or the Hindu-Muslim relationship was not good, I would not have been elected as the chairman of a Municipal Committee which has 13,000 voters. Here, we live like one big family. We care for each other."
Talking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BJP which is trying to make inroads into the Kashmir valley, he said that the BJP would not succeed in efforts. He felt that the people vote on the basis of local issues and the people of Uri favour the local MLA and minister Taj Mohiuddin of the Congress over all other candidates in the fray.
Local Pandit voters praise Taj Mohiuddin for the work he did after the devastating earthquake in 2005. They claim that he is very close to his voters and always there for them. He is one of the very few Congress leaders who has a very strong chance of winning from his seat comfortably.
Bharat Kumar Sharma runs a construction company called Bharat Constructions and and also works as a government contractor.
He says that Kashmiri Pandits in Lagama are an integral part of the local life. Most of them are in government jobs and the others do agriculture and trade. He said, "We are inseparable."
The village looks very peaceful and has all the signs of a village which has Hindu population.
A 17-year-old boy Kewal Krishan Raina also says that he never felt insecure in his village.
He said, "I was born and brought up here. I am happy and never felt insecure. I want to become a software engineer. I have already taken the entrance exam. Next year I have to leave my village. I feel sad. Life is so good here."
When IBNLive asked them about the Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to leave the valley in the 1990s and the Pandits killed by the militants, they say that they won't comment on what their fellow Pandits have gone through and prefer to remain silent.
Most of the Pandits live in Lagama village while the rest of them are in neighbouring Bandi and Dyari villages.
One more interesting thing is these Pandits speak Kashmiri and most of their Muslim neighbours speak local dialects of the hills and not Kashmiri. It also has a small number of Sikhs who migrated from Muzaffarabad in Pakistan in 1947. They speak Punjabi, which is slightly different from the Punjabi spoken elsewhere.
Talking about the situation in the area, a 67-year-old Sikh farmer Swaranjit Singh said, "We are very happy here. We have no problem. Uri is on the border. But we are safe. No one troubled us in the past. Both the Hindu Pandits and the Sikhs are safe."
These villages have Hindu temples and the community celebrates festivals and follows Hindu rituals. Every year one or two weddings also take place here.
According to Sharma these three villages together have 1100 Pandit voters and most of them vote in the elections. Many Pandit villagers said that they were excited about the Assembly election.
The Army also has a huge presence in these areas and the entire stretch is heavily guarded because of its geographical closeness to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
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