Click to play videoNaava-pachi, Jammu and Kashmir:
Perhaps it was for the first time that the villagers in Naava-pachi were seeing a helicopter land.
Not surprising, since the village doesn't even have a proper access road. The nearest one is a good three-day trek away. For the 15,000 villagers in this land-locked area, independence in a way is still a distant dream.
"The country has become independent, but we haven't. To get to the nearest town or road, we have to walk. It does not seem that we got Independence. The facilities of a free nation have not reached us," Baijnath Sharma, a resident of Navva-pachi, says.
Incidentally, the village falls in the home district of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. And it's a hot bed of militancy. But the Indian Army is finally reaching out to them. In an effort to bring the villagers into the mainstream, the Army is holding a recruitment camp here. The aim is to provide employment opportunities to the young men in the areas and also to save them from being recruited by militants.
"It will help the Army in eliminating militancy. The local youths were being lured by militants. The militants will now see the futility of operating in this area," Brig Abhimanyu Raut of CO 9 Sector RR, says.
The villagers, too, have welcomed the move. "Hum kehte hain ki desh accha hona chaiye. Militancy khatam hone chaiye. (We want that our country should progress and militancy should end. This is a good opportunity for us," Feroz Ahmad, another villager, says.
As the Army chopper returned, the villagers too turned back to their homes. For them, it will still be years before the dream of a motorable road turns real. But there is consolation, that at least someone is making an effort to help them.
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