A grief divided: funeral held on the Kishanganga’s banks prompts calls to reopen LoC crossing points

When Raja Liaquat Ali Khan died of a heart attack on April 26, his divided family gathered on both banks of the 300-foot wide Kishanganga river to conduct a unique funeral that has renewed the spotlight on the closed crossing-points across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir.

Khan was a resident of Kupwara’s Keran village, which abuts the LoC. Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) lies on the other side, where the river is known as the Neelam. A ten-minute walk connecting the two sides was closed by the Union government in 2019, meaning that Khan’s brothers and sisters, who have been living on the POK side since 1989, were forced to bid him farewell from a distance, watching the funeral from across the waters.