Top-level diplomatic efforts to force India and Pakistan towards peace have made recent headway but life in the Kashmir war zone is no different for thousands of refugees who have fled daily artillery bombardments.
Nearly two thousand Pakistani Kashmiris have been forced from their homes to this town 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the Line of Control after a month of unrelenting India-Pakistan duels along the disputed state's de facto border.
And they were far from being convinced that the recent lull in cross-border firing, with a five-day quiet patch this week and officials reporting the border as "generally quiet" on Sunday, was a sign of better things to come.
"Regardless of what leaders on both sides are saying, there is no peace on the ground," Bagh Ali Shah, a refugee living in an impoverished camp here, told AFP.
"We do not trust Indian leaders," said Shah, who weathered the Kashmir wars of 1965 and 1971 but has been forced out of his home village of Revand by the recent cross-border attacks.
"As long as the Indian forces are there, we expect every brute, inhuman action from them. They have been killing our women and children without any provocation for more than a decade."
Zahir Hussain is a refugee from the same village in the Chakothi sector south of Muzaffarabad, where official records show 43 people have been killed and scores have been injured in 12 years of shelling.
He said the mortar attacks had paralysed village life.
"We cannot move about, we cannot cultivate. Suddenly shelling starts leaving no chance to take shelter," he said.
"We will believe easing of tensions when we will see its impact on the ground."
New Delhi has recently withdrawn its navy from waters off Pakistan, reopened its airspace to Pakistani flights and granted leave to some of its hundreds of thousands of troops stationed on the borders.
The gestures, after concerted diplomatic pressure from the international community and most notably the United States, Britain and Russia, have been lauded as a sign the nuclear-armed rivals were stepping back from the brink of war.
But Shah, one of many thousands bearing the brunt of India and Pakistan's ongoing row over Kashmir, dismissed the moves as "eyewash".
"Return of naval warships and grant of leave to soldiers all are eyewash. For us there is no change," he said, standing outside one of around 40 refugee tents here.
Feelings are also running high in the border village of Chakothi, where every other shop has been damaged by shelling.
Only a handful of the village's 200 stores were open on Sunday and there were no customers to be seen after a fatal attack on May 18 which killed one woman and injured 12 more.
"My shop has been closed since May 18. I have opened it today only for dusting because there is no business, as there are no customers," said Safir Azam, 18, who runs a small grocery store.
Another shopkeeper described reports that tensions had eased as "misleading".
"Tensions have not receded. We are living in a permanent state of fear and uncertainty," said Syed Muzaffar.
Indian hillside posts barely 200 metres away are clearly visible from the market.
"As I talk to you, my ears are towards them (the Indians). Who knows when they will resume shelling," Muzaffar said. "I don't believe there is peace."
The local administration chief said the shelling made it impossible for people to get on with their lives.
"Sometimes there is a lull for some time, but suddenly heavy shelling starts, which makes it difficult for the people living on the border to carry on with their lives," said Ghulam Bashir Mughal.
Around a million troops are stationed on the Pakistan-India borders following an attack on New Delhi's parliament in December and tensions soared to new heights after a massacre in Indian Kashmir last month.
(China Daily June 24, 2002)
