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Picture perfect Kashmir village frozen in time
Published on Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 15:06 in 
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DARK AGES: There's no official civil administration here and the Army is in charge of everything.
Gurez (Kashmir): It's been almost four years since the guns fell silent near the Gurez Valley, but for the 25,000-odd people who live in this picture-postcard village near the Line of Control, life hasn't got much easier.
Aijaz Gurezi's family, like most others here, still live inside a log hut, get three hours of electricity a day in the summer and have already started to stock up supplies for the long hard winter ahead -- when they'll get just one hour of power in a day.
"We have snowfall for seven months of the year. We have to stock supplies like wood, rice, and food before the winter starts," says he.
Adds his sister Nameema, "It gets very cold here. There's around ten feet of snow. It's very difficult for us to study. We have to study and eat in the same place."
The Gurezis are ethnically Dardis - members of an Indo-Aryan tribe, with their own language, Sheena. There's no official civil administration this close to the Line of Control, and the Army is in charge of everything.
Most people here used to work as porters, earning up to Rs 3,000 per month, but now the Army prefers to hire mules. Even the farmers have it tough as the Line of Control runs right through their fields.
Says a farmer, Ejaz Ahmed, "The Line of Control is behind the mountain here; we don't know why they have put up a fence on our land."
Life for the people of Gurez revolves in cycle of six months. Nestled on the banks of Kishanganga or the Neelum river and perilously close to the Line of Control Gurez still looks like a place stuck in the dark ages.
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