A cool spring dusk at the Attari-Wagah border found hundreds of anxious travellers hauling suitcases and wiping away tears. A young boy clung to his grandfather’s legs, sobbing as they prepared to part ways. Nearby, a woman pressed her palm against the fence dividing India and Pakistan, eyes searching desperately for a last glimpse of her family across the border. Such scenes of heartbreak and chaos played out for days after a deadly terrorist attack in Kashmir unleashed a wave of reprisals that rippled far beyond the conflict zone. The human toll was painfully visible at this sole land crossing between India and Pakistan, where loved ones exchanged hurried hugs and tearful goodbyes amid an atmosphere charged with uncertainty and grief.
Government Response: Expulsions and Visa Cancellations
The catalyst for this border anguish was a mass shooting on April 22 in the Pahalgam area of Indian-administered Kashmir, where militants opened fire on a group of tourists, killing 26 people (25 Indians and one Nepali national). In the immediate aftermath, India’s government pointed the finger at Pakistan, alleging that the attackers had support from across the border. New Delhi convened a high-level meeting and swiftly announced a raft of punitive measures. Within days, India suspended visa services for Pakistani citizens and ordered all Pakistani nationals on short-term visas, from tourists to those seeking medical care, to leave the country by set deadlines. Indian officials also slashed Pakistan’s diplomatic presence by expelling several Pakistani diplomats and military attachés, giving them 48 hours to depart. On April 23, India’s Home Minister instructed all state governments to identify and deport Pakistani citizens residing in India without long-term visas.
Islamabad reacted with mirror-image retaliation. Pakistan’s government condemned India’s actions as hasty and unsubstantiated, then proceeded to cancel visas for Indian nationals, effectively barring Indians from entering. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office declared all Indian defence and military advisers in Islamabad persona non grata and ordered their immediate expulsion. Pakistan also sealed its side of the Wagah border crossing “with immediate effect”, suspended cross-border trade, and closed Pakistani airspace to Indian aircraft. A statement from Pakistan’s National Security Committee warned that any interference by India with the shared water supply (a reference to India’s threat to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty) would be viewed as an “act of war.””.
Each country essentially shut its doors to the other’s people in a rapid tit-for-tat escalation. What had been a trickle of travel and commerce across one of the world’s most militarised borders ground to a halt. And as diplomatic tempers flared, ordinary people caught in the middle had to scramble to get home before the doors slammed shut.
Families Torn Apart and Personal Stories of Pain
For the hundreds of Pakistani visitors in India – some receiving medical treatment, others visiting relatives or sightseeing – the abrupt expulsion order felt like collective punishment. “We are going back, but someone else is being punished for someone else’s deeds. What happened in Pahalgam was wrong… innocents were killed,” one Pakistani woman lamented as she prepared to cross back at Attari. Her words, “punished for someone else’s deeds,” echoed the feelings of many who had nothing to do with the violence, yet suddenly found themselves hurriedly packing their bags. A man from Pakistan’s Umerkot district who had been visiting family in India expressed a similar mix of resignation and sorrow: “We are returning since there are orders… What happened in Pahalgam was wrong, but we are paying for it”. At the crowded border post, anguish was palpable as travellers questioned why civilians seeking peace or medical care should suffer for a militant outrage they neither supported nor had control over.
On the other side, Indians living, working, or studying in Pakistan also rushed to return home. New Delhi had advised all Indian citizens in Pakistan to leave for their own safety, and many families cut short visits. Among them was the family of an Indian woman from Meerut, U.P., who is married to a Pakistani man. Identified as Sana in local reports, she had travelled to India with her two young children to visit her parents. When her short-term visa expired amid the crackdown, she tried to rejoin her husband in Pakistan – only to be stopped at Wagah. Pakistani border guards denied entry to Sana because she held an Indian passport, even though her children (being Pakistan-born) could cross. Unwilling to abandon her toddlers, Sana had no choice but to turn back to India. “My children insisted on seeing their father, but I had to return,” she told reporters in a strained voice, explaining that she could not let them go alone. Her Pakistani husband and in-laws, waiting anxiously on the other side, were left in despair. Such human dramas underscore how political decisions can cleave families in two, trapping people in bureaucratic limbo and heartache.
Throughout the weekend following the attack, the flow of people at Attari-Wagah resembled an exodus. According to officials, at least 537 Pakistani nationals – including 9 diplomats – departed India via the Attari land crossing from April 24 to 27. Many more likely left through indirect routes (via third countries, since direct flights are nonexistent). In the same four-day span, about 850 Indians, including 14 diplomats, returned from Pakistan. These figures grew by the day. Nearly 700 Pakistanis had left through Attari by April 28, news outlets reported, and conversely, over 800 Indians had crossed back. Each number on the ledger represents real people with families: students whose studies were cut short, patients whose treatments were disrupted, and relatives who don’t know when they will see each other again. At the border terminal, many hugged tightly before parting, uncertain when official permissions would allow them to reunite.
One image widely circulated in Indian media showed a Pakistani grandmother in a black shawl, eyes brimming with tears, bidding farewell to her son-in-law on the Indian side. “It will be good if both countries work together,” pleaded another Pakistani traveller, stressing that ordinary people on both sides yearn for “peace, harmony, and trade, rather than gunfire, bombs and terrorist attacks”. For now, though, hostility prevailed, and simple family visits had turned into geopolitical quagmires.
Historical Fault Lines: Partition and the Kashmir Dispute
Observers note that these human stories are only the latest chapter in a long history of families divided by the India-Pakistan conflict. When the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 to create an independent India and Pakistan, it triggered one of the largest mass migrations ever recorded. Millions of people were uprooted virtually overnight, forced to flee sectarian violence and choose a new nationality as the border was drawn. The tumultuous partition left countless families split apart, with parents, siblings, and spouses stranded on opposite sides of a hastily demarcated line. What was once a single, undivided homeland became two nations separated by barbed wire and deep mistrust. Ever since, the border has been heavily guarded and often closed, making visits a challenging ordeal. As decades passed, some relatives managed to reunite – there are poignant tales of siblings finding each other after 50 or 75 years – but many more remained permanently estranged by politics and distance.
Nowhere is this legacy of division more evident than in Kashmir, the Himalayan region that India and Pakistan have disputed since partition. Kashmir was a flashpoint from the very beginning: the two newly independent countries fought their first war over it in 1947-48, and two more wars in the following decades, as both claimed the region in full. In effect, Kashmir itself was partitioned by a ceasefire line (today the Line of Control), which cut through communities and even family properties, compounding the human cost. To this day, Kashmir remains split between an Indian-administered part and a Pakistani-administered part – a symbol of unfinished business from partition. The unresolved dispute has fueled persistent tension, insurgencies, and military standoffs, casting a long shadow over India-Pakistan relations.
Crucially, each episode of major violence in or about Kashmir tends to fray cross-border ties further. In February 2019, a suicide bombing in Pulwama (in Indian Kashmir) killed 40 Indian soldiers, sparking a military confrontation including airstrikes. In the diplomatic fallout, even the modest links that allow people-to-people contact were severed: the decades-old Samjhauta Express train service between India and Pakistan – a key route that families used to visit relatives – was suspended indefinitely. Thousands of visa requests were left in limbo as both countries halted travel and scaled down their High Commissions. The bus services and informal ceasefire meetings that had briefly given hope for easier crossings earlier in the 2000s became casualties of renewed hostility. Each conflict leaves behind a trail of disrupted lives, particularly among families that straddle the border or have loved ones in the other country.
Struggling to Maintain Cross-Border Family Ties
Even in calmer times, it has always been difficult to maintain cross-border family ties between Indians and Pakistanis. Both governments impose strict visa regimes, requiring tedious paperwork, security clearances, and often long waiting periods for approvals. Many families have gone years or decades without seeing their relatives in person, relying on phone calls or internet video chats, which themselves have been curtailed at times of tension. Some goodwill initiatives have emerged, like the Kartarpur Corridor (opened in 2019) that allows visa-free visits by Indian Sikhs to a holy shrine in Pakistan, showing that cooperation is possible. But such exceptions are rare. More often, those who wish to attend a wedding, funeral, or simply reconnect with family across the border must navigate a maze of red tape and uncertainty. Elderly parents have missed seeing their sons and daughters, grandparents have never met their grandchildren, and emotional reunions remain elusive.
Against this backdrop, the sudden border closure and reciprocal expulsions in April 2025 delivered a heavy blow to cross-border families. Many had hoped that a recent ceasefire along the frontier and tentative diplomatic contacts might improve people-to-people exchange. Instead, the Kashmir tourist attack and the ensuing fallout sent relations into a downward spiral once more. For families divided by the international border – and for communities within divided Kashmir – it was yet another reminder of how fragile their connections are. “Although it wasn’t ever easy to come and go… No, it has never been,” reflected two octogenarian sisters separated by partition, in a recollection of their lives spanning India and Pakistan. Their words ring true for the current generation as well: crossing this border for family or friendship has always been an uphill journey, and now it has become nearly impossible again.
The Ongoing Human Cost of Political Conflict
As the dust slowly settles from this latest India-Pakistan diplomatic clash, the human cost continues to mount in silent ways. Tourist spots in Kashmir may be quiet again, and government officials on both sides may have moved on to new priorities, but the families caught in the middle are left to pick up the pieces. An untold number of weddings, medical treatments, business trips, and family reunions were derailed by the sudden measures. Each story – from the grandmother who couldn’t attend her grandson’s marriage, to the student forced to abandon a semester abroad – adds to the ledger of suffering that doesn’t make headlines.
What remains at the end of this ordeal is a profound sense of loss and longing among ordinary Indians and Pakistanis. They are bearing the brunt of state actions that, while prompted by security concerns, often fail to differentiate between militants and civilians. The border that separates them is not just a line on a map; it is a lived reality of razor wire, checkpoints, and visas denied or revoked at a moment’s notice. The ongoing standoff between the two nuclear-armed neighbours means that any peace overtures or easing of travel restrictions may be far off. In the meantime, the people who form the fabric of India-Pakistan relations – families with shared history, culture, and blood – remain helplessly divided.
In a powerful reflection of this tragedy, an Indian businessman watching the exodus at Wagah told an international reporter, “I have seen people break down seeing their loved ones leave, not knowing when or if they’ll meet again.” The tears at the border speak to a larger truth: that the human connections between Indians and Pakistanis run deep, and every political rupture inflicts real wounds on real lives. As long as the shadow of conflict looms, these personal wounds will continue to reopen, reminding both nations that the price of enmity is ultimately paid in the currency of human pain and separation. In the words of one traveler forced to leave, “It will be good if both countries work together” – a simple yet profound hope that someday peace will prevail over hate, and families will not have to suffer for the deeds of a few.
Note: This report was created with the help of coverage and details originally published by The New York Times, Al Jazeera, Times of India, and NDTV.
