Love across the border: From a village in PoK to Uri

Iram Majeed’s phone buzzes with a message: “Main pahunch chuka hoon (I have arrived).” Half-awake, she tosses the phone away. A few seconds later, the same buzz. This time, it is a photograph — a frame from Silikote village, with its cellphone tower and slanted-tin-roof houses. She sits up, startled. Zeeshan has got to be joking. He couldn’t have come to Silikote, could he have?

She reaches for her dupatta, tosses it over her head and runs — as she has never before.

From Iram’s bedroom window, Silikote’s cellphone tower and the Army bunkers are a familiar sight from her. (Photograph by Shuaib Masoodi)

Silikote, the last village on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC), is 10 km uphill from Uri town. From Iram’s home in Tilawari village, Silikote is just a few hundred metres away, the cellphone tower and the Army bunkers at the edge of the village a familiar sight from her bedroom window.

Few maps have charted the distance from Zeeshan’s home, Pankedi, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Muzaffarabad, to Silikote. But that morning, on May 31, he had managed to bridge that gap.

As Iram runs up to Silikote, the distance seems longer. She sweeps down the mountain, crosses a footbridge, and walks up the 2-km road to Silikote, pausing midway to catch her breath, the cool mountain air soothing her burning lungs. Thirty minutes later, her run ends at Silikote’s guarded gates, as the soldiers step out to stop her.

Zeeshan being questioned by the Army. (Photo: Official records)

Later that day, on May 31, the Army issued an announcement: An “intruder from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir” had been apprehended while he was crossing the LoC in Kashmir’s Uri sector. The soldiers had maintained “restraint while challenging the intruder” and, later in the evening, handed the youth over to the police for “legal proceedings”.

They were convinced that he had “no hostile intent”.

He was just hopelessly in love.

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There is a lot that can come between two young people — caste, communities, parents, religion, money. Or, as in the case of 22-year-olds Iram and Zeeshan, a dotted line on the map.

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Iram grew up in Tilawari, in the border district of Uri, as the eldest of four children of Abdul Majeed, a municipal employee posted in Uri town, and homemaker Afroza Begum. Most mornings in Tilawari are unhurried, unless there is a landslide and everyone gathers to talk about it, or the air sirens go off in the event of cross-border firing.

Iram, the eldest of four siblings, lives in Tilawari village, Uri. (Photograph by Shuaib Masoodi)

On all other days, Iram would walk 1.5 km downhill to reach the local Darul Uloom, where she is enrolled in a four-year course, and come back home to watch reruns of CID on television with her three younger sisters. But even in that full house, Iram would, every now and then, find a way to check her old Vivo smartphone for updates from Zeeshan.

Zeeshan dropped out of school after Class 5 — at least that’s what he told Iram. “I don’t know if he said it as a joke to tease me or if it is the truth,” she says. The youngest of five brothers, Zeeshan grew up in a family of farmers in PoK’s Pankedi village. Unlike his farmer brothers, he worked at a cardboard packaging factory in Lahore.

It was a year ago that Zeeshan entered Iram’s life — through a friend request on Snapchat. The two had never met, but their families had once been in touch, with a common relative even suggesting a marriage alliance. It was the mid-2000s, when relations between India and Pakistan were markedly better, when a cross-LoC bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad had been launched as a confidence-building measure. But the 2019 Pulwama attack changed that. The bus, and the border, shut down, and with that, the only way for people on both sides to connect with each other.

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But then, over time, another window opened up. The growing popularity of social media, particularly among youngsters, allowed snippets of life from both sides of the LoC to slip across the barbed fence.

A Pakistani army bunker in PoK is visible from Iram’s house in Tilawari, a border village in Uri district. (Photograph by Shuaib Masoodi)

Just as Zeeshan’s friend request slid into Iram’s phone on May 14, 2025.

The two got talking — initially about their shared links to Iram’s village, Tilawari. Zeeshan told her that his grandfather had migrated from Tilawari to Pankedi village in PoK’s Forward Kahuta sometime before 1947.

Soon, their conversations turned into a daily ritual they both looked forward to. “We exchanged stories and shared photographs… I can’t really say when it happened, but before we knew it, we had fallen in love,” says Iram.

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Yet, Iram kept the conversations — and her budding relationship with Zeeshan — a secret from her family. Not even her best friend, Shaheena, knew. She was unsure how her parents and sisters would react if she told them. “Since I am the eldest, I am supposed to set an example for my siblings. But what can you do about love,” she says.

They talked about “life here and life there… our dreams, our future”. Soon, Zeeshan was talking about how he was yearning to visit her. “But I never imagined — not even for a moment — that he would try to cross the border,” says Iram.

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Silikote, less than a kilometre from the Line of Control (LoC), can seem forbidding to an outsider. Layers of security, in the form of Army bunkers, line the road that cuts through the village. Movement is highly restricted and to cross the military bunkers, residents must carry specialised smart identity cards, which are verified by Army personnel. Over time, most residents have moved out of Silikote, leaving behind barely five to six households.

It was at one of the Army bunkers that Zeeshan landed up that day. Officers say he turned himself in. “He took out his phone and identity card and handed them over,” says a security officer.

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The identity card, issued by Pakistan in August 2022, identified him as Zeeshan Mir, son of Lal Mir and a resident of “AJK State (Azad Jammu and Kashmir)”.

Minutes later, Iram landed up at the same checkpoint. Zeeshan, who caught a glimpse of her before he was taken away, told the soldiers that he had come for Iram. For the next 15 minutes, as she stood outside the guarded gate, pacing between its two ends, Iram’s heart pounded. Was Zeeshan in trouble? Was he injured, shot by the Army personnel, hit by a stray bullet perhaps?

The trail from PoK’s Pankedi to Silikote passes through steep cliffs and dense forests that’s home to black bears, Himalayan gorals and wild boars, with snow leopards in the higher elevations. Besides, soldiers from both sides patrol the area, their guns at the ready, scanning for intruders.

Just as her mind raced, something around her stirred. She looked up to see Zeeshan standing before her, smiling. “He was safe, completely unharmed. He was alive. That was all that mattered,” she says.

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A video grab of Iram and Zeeshan being questioned by Army personnel.

The soldiers interrogated the couple. A video of the interrogation, shared by official sources, shows Zeeshan and Iram, sitting side by side, sharing their personal details — name, address, father’s name. Iram appears unafraid, her arm locked defiantly into Zeeshan’s.

“Zeeshan wouldn’t let go of my hand. He kept saying, ‘Stay here with me’. I didn’t want him to get harmed in any way or feel lonely,” she says later. “The officers asked me if I knew him, reviewed our messages and the photographs we had exchanged.  They treated us well.”

And then, in an unexpected act of grace, the soldiers looked the other way and granted the couple a few moments together.

For the next 10 minutes, Zeeshan told Iram about his journey. “He told me he had started from his village the previous evening (May 30). He was scared, but was excited about crossing over and meeting me. While crossing the fence, he says he came across a leopard. Luckily, it had prey in its mouth and walked away without harming him,” says Iram.

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Iram stayed with Zeeshan till it was time for the Army to hand him over to the police. She says she pleaded with the soldiers to let her accompany him to the police station, but they refused, calling her father instead to escort her home.

At the Uri station, police filed a case against Zeeshan under provisions of the Egress and Internal Movement (Control) Ordinance (EIMCO), a law that regulates who can enter, exit and travel within the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

“One look at him and you could tell that he is not a militant. He had crossed such dangerous terrain wearing just a pair of Peshawari chappals, a kurta and tight pants,” laughs a police officer at the Uri station.

Two days later, Iram, accompanied by her mother, met Zeeshan in police custody. They spoke briefly, asking if the other was doing alright. “We couldn’t talk much. He looked tired, but happy and hopeful. He kept saying he was happy to finally be on this side of Kashmir. I don’t think he fully knew what it meant to cross the border,” says Iram.

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By evening that day, Zeeshan was moved to Central Jail, Baramulla. A month later, police filed a chargesheet in an Uri court and shifted Zeeshan to Uri jail. The trial in the case is set to start soon, at the end of which the court will decide whether Zeeshan can stay on in Tilawari or will have to be sent back across the LoC.

Iram says Zeeshan is insistent on staying back. “He told me and the policemen that if he is sent back, he will apply for a visa and come back,” she says. “He told them he can’t live anywhere but in Kashmir.”

Officials say that in most cases, intruders who are not deemed a security threat are sent back. “There is a possibility that the court may allow him to stay back on humanitarian grounds. But the chances of deportation are always higher,” says a police officer.

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Iram now counts the days, waiting for some news about Zeeshan. “I wonder what got into him. He never hinted that he would get up one day and cross over. At least when we were chatting, he seemed very practical — he would say that he would apply for a visa and come here,” she says.

She wonders if family expectations played a part in his decision to take the risk. “He often spoke about the pressures he faced at home. He would say that one of his brothers wanted him to contribute more to the household than he earned. There was also a lot of pressure on him to get married. All that may have left him disturbed,” she says.

Iram Bano. (Photograph by Shuaib Masoodi)

Following the May 31 incident, two soldiers arrived at Iram’s home to gather more information about their relationship.

Sitting in the verandah of their two-storeyed house, Iram’s mother Afroza Begum says, “Initially, we were angry with Iram. But then, an Army man intervened, pointed out that this boy had taken all this trouble just to be with her.

Then, I thought, we must stand by them. I have four daughters, and I have always wished for a son. God has sent us one. We only hope he is released and allowed to stay here.”

“How can they send him back? And even if they do, Zeeshan will come back. I am certain,” says Iram.