Rajouri
wakes upto another death dance
KS
Correspondent
Within a
fortnight, the terrorists attacked the minority community once again. This time
in Rajouri. Kot Dharra, just eight kms from the district headquarter of Rajouri
has remained under terrorist seige during the past three years. In the six
attacks so far, the villagers have often been falling victim to the militants’
bullets.
Eyewitness accounts said a group of at least three militants, which included
some locals as well entered the village around afternoon on August 17. The
militants were sighted by a local in the house of her neighbour Haji Jehangir,
enjoying lunch. Initially militants wanted to kill this local, but the
intervention of Jehangir’s wife earned her reprieve. She was instead locked in
one of the rooms.
At around
6-45 PM, militants went out to prey for their victims. First they forced their
entry into the house of Manohar Lal. He and his relatives Bishamber and
Purshottam Kumar were killed. The two, relatives who were brothers-in-law of
Lal’s daughter had come from Kalakot to attend dinner.
Reports
said, while mercenaries kept watch at the nearby CRPF picket, the local
militants engaged themselves in the carnage. The militants began firing at the
houses of the minority community indiscriminately.
After
hearing the gun shot, some of the civilians fled from the houses but were chased
out and shot dead by militants. Vishwanath, was shot dead in his fields. His son
Ashok Kumar was killed inside the house. Suraj Prakash and Seema, the two other
children of Vishwanath sustained serious bullet injuries.
Chander
Prakash, another villager managed to escape to the fields. His wife Chamba Devi,
daughter Sakhi and son Suhail were fired upon by the militants beneath the beds
of their houses, where they had taken shelter. They were subsequently shifted to
the Army hospital.
Poonam
Devi, after serving tea to her husband had gone to the adjoining playfield of
school to collect her two children, Arun and Sakshi. The militants fired
indiscriminately on them. The condition of her four-year old son, Arun continues
to remain critical.
The
personnel manning the nearby CRPF picket, erected a few months back, looked the
other way, even as militants continued to target people for fifteen minutes. The
villagers are bitter that CRPF men remained in hiding inside their bunker and
came out only next day morning "just to recover the bodies". Did the State
government ever ponder, why Kashmiri Pandits have only contempt for its
so-called ‘Action Plans’ on return and ‘Rs 2600 crore Package’. The day it does
so, massacres at Kot Dhara and other places will not recur. True, the leaders of
Congress and state BJP have used harshest possible expressions to condemn the
massacre and the State government. Did they ever ask what their central leaders
manning the Home Ministry did to prempt the many massacres and ensure permanent
deterrence against ethnic-cleansing.
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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