India's tepid response to the tragedy has also reinforced a sense of alienation among many ordinary Kashmiris living in the occupied state, said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
"We thought both countries should have risen beyond politics, but the only thing we see is them being involved in scoring brownie points off each other," said the 34-year-old, who is also the religious leader.
"It was an opportunity for India and Pakistan to really bridge the gap, to come closer to each other at this hour of crisis," he told Reuters in an interview.
"But I feel it has widened the gap."
India has tried to score a propaganda victory by proposing relief operations across the frontline - an offer Pakistan spurned - and by sending aid to Islamabad, Kashmiris say.
But it has not allowed Kashmiris on its side of the frontline to telephone the other side to find out about relatives there.
The neighbours even got involved in a row on Thursday about whether Indian soldiers had crossed the frontline to help their Pakistani counterparts rebuild a bunker.
"Repeatedly we had asked the Indian government to at least open telephone links between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, but that has fallen on deaf ears," Farooq said. "This only adds to the agony."
India cut telephone links between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in 1989. But Farooq said the ban made no sense in an era of satellite phones, and was only hurting ordinary people.
Sitting in the garden of his home in occupied Srinagar after several days on the road bringing relief to earthquake victims, Farooq said the frontline should be thrown open to allow Kashmiris to get relief, or help those that need it.
"It is so sad. We have so many people on the other side, of the same blood, of the same culture, but we cannot help them. In spite of the fact we are so near, we are helpless."
India, he said, was also putting pride before the people of Kashmir by not appealing for international help, as Pakistan had. With at least 30,000 tents needed and only 5,000 distributed in occupied Kashmir, it says it has run out and is manufacturing more.
"In the whole of India you don't have any tents? If that is the case then you should say, as Pakistan has appealed for international help, let India also say 'we are not capable of dealing with it'."
Farooq has also been bitterly disappointed by the "very cold response" by Indian business, individuals and aid groups - especially in comparison to the national response to the tsunami or the 2001 earthquake in the western state of Gujarat.