In this last Indian village bordering Pakistan, a silent witness to a military build-up, people worry more about 'the wrath of god' than the threat of war still hanging over them. 'We are least worried about a war as we have already lived through two wars with Pakistan in the past three-and-a-half decades,' Biri Soda, the village head, said. 'But earthquake is another matter. You can do nothing in the face of god's wrath.' The quake, measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, flattened the village, peopled largely by the Rajput community, on the edge of Kutch district a year ago. But all the 250 collapsed houses have been rebuilt thanks to a Hindu religious outfit. The army's camouflaged trucks, laden with troops and provisions, including lambs and chickens, are still trundling down the state highway to the border, a reminder that Indo-Pak tension has not eased. The Gujarat government is quickly building a road across the impassable Rann of Kutch - a huge expanse of salty marshland that dries up in summer and winter - to help the army ferry troops and supplies to the border. Beyond Kuran, the Rann starts, which the troops cross on tractors or camelback. The army has declared the entire Rann off-limits to visitors, including journalists. Shumrapor is barely a kilometre from Kuran, but not as lucky. Even a year after the quake, the village of 240 Muslim families lies shattered, with no signs of reconstruction. A voluntary organisation, which promised to rebuild the village, is yet to start work. Villagers feel let down but are not envious of neighbouring Kuran, full of spanking new cement houses. 'This is all our luck. We had thought the Christian organisation would keep its word and rebuild our village. But nothing has happened,' sarpanch Allarakha Noor Mohammad said. 'It's good that Kuran has got new houses. It is good for the homeless people there.' All the 240 families of Shumrapor have been living in flimsy tents of cardboard and plastic sheeting for the past one year, buffeted by strong winds blowing across the Rann of Kutch. Unlike most quake-hit villages, Shumrapor residents have not received full compensation for the collapsed houses. 'All other villages in the border area, both Hindu and Muslim, have received compensation, but we have only got one instalment,' said Abdullah Gaffar, a resident. The sarpanch said the villagers had met local taluka officials, but they were told 'the other two instalments would be paid to the Christian organisation slated to rebuild our village'. Religion is playing a subtle role in the reconstruction of the wrecked border villages, with Hindu and Muslim organisations rebuilding the villages peopled by their co-religionists. 'It's a sad commentary on the prevailing social situation. But the villagers are at least getting their homes back, no matter what organisations are rebuilding them,' said Sushma Iyenger of Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, a group of 29 NGOs working on reconstruction along with the UN and the state government. Iyenger said the Abhiyan was reconstructing several villages, cutting across the barrier of religion. 'We are doing our bit by constructing houses in both Hindu and Muslim villages.' Like Kuran, the residents of Shumrapor, the second village from the Indo-Pak border, are not perturbed over the military build-up or a war. But they, too, are frightened of a quake. 'The army is doing its job and let them do it. We have nothing to do with that,' Gaffar said. 'But we pray that god will not kill us with an earthquake again.' Allarakha, the sarpanch, said his village would help the army if a war broke out. 'We will give them food, water or whatever we have,' he said. In the 1971 Indo-Pak war, Kuran residents had sent the wives and children away, but the men had stayed back in the village despite heavy bombing in the area. 'We are not going to leave our village this time either,' said Soda, the village head, confident of India's military prowess.