Srinagar, May 16 -- "This is what we got," said Laldeen Khatana, a former village head here near the Line of Control. "But would you hide your children in a place like this?"

I stood in that space longer than I needed to, trying to imagine a mother with three children crouched in the dark, the ground above shaking with the sound of shells. I couldn't. Not for more than a minute.

Over the past few months, I've traveled across forward areas of Jammu and Kashmir, from Uri in the north to Poonch in the south, to see what "civilian protection" looks like in a region where shelling is part of life.

The government of India, under a central scheme, has spent crores building thousands of bunkers in villages along the LoC. But many of these stru...