March 21, 1997
Sangrampura Massacre
In Sangrampura, a village 20 miles south of Srinagar
in Jammu & Kashmir state, gunmen burst into homes of Hindus, took away
seven men and killed them.
June 15, 1997
Passengers on a bus from Gool to Ramban was stopped
by two men in comouflage uniforms. The Hindu passengers were asked to unboard
and three were taken to a nearby nallah and shot. All three were Kashmiri
Hindus.
January 25, 1998
Wandhama Massacre
The most shocking of the massacre of Kashmiri Hindus
took place in Wandhama, a village near Srinagar, on January 25, 1998. The two
dozen-odd terrorists dropped in for tea, around 2030 hours. The tea was served
and they left a little after midnight.
When they arrived, the foothill village of Wandhama,
30 km outside Srinagar, boasted four families of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits,
numbering around 23. When they left, there was none.
Not alive, that is. Barring a terrified,
grief-stricken Vinod Kumar Dhar, all of fourteen, seeing through brimming eyes
the bodies of his mother, sisters and relatives, their bodies marred with
bullet holes, their last resting place a pool of their own blood.
This was followed by two more massacres, one at
Khurhama, Ganderbal on August 9, 1998 in which four members of a family were
killed. The third massacre took place September 17, 1998. Five male members of
a minority community family and close relatives of a counter-insurgent were
killed after being dragged out of their houses at Dagapora in Ganderbal late
last night and shot them in cold blood.
April 17, 1998
Prankot Massacre
Twelve-year-old Sudesh isn't sure whether she is
lucky or not. She is yet to decide which is worse: Escaping death at the hands
of militants, or being forced to live with memories of her entire family being
massacred right in front of her eyes.
For this little girl from Prankot village in Udhampur
district, currently under treatment at the Jammu medical college, the night of
April 17 cannot be forgotten -- that's when militants gunned down 18 members
of her family. Sudesh was brutally attacked with a sharp-edged weapon.
The terrorists left after she fell unconscious, thinking her dead.
Soba Ram is another survivor of that bloody night.
The militants killed eight members of his family. Only his second wife
Rajkumari, their newborn child and two daughters, aged eight and five, who
were in another village, escaped them.
About 1,000 people from these villages are in Pauni
and Riyasi, fled in fear and stayed in temporary camps for a long timer before
returning to their homes.
June 19, 1998
Champnagri Wedding Massacre
In an attack on a wedding party in the mountainous
Doda district, 175km north-east of Jammu city, two bridegrooms and more than
20 wedding guests in a mountainous village were killed. The men were singled
out and shot before the gunmen fled. Seven others were injured
July 27, 1998
Thakrai and Sarwan Massacre
At least 16 Hindus were killed in two night-time
attacks in Doda district in two hill villages just a few kilometres apart. In
Thakrai, terrorists burst into home of a Hindu family and opened fire with
automatic weapons. Five people were killed on the spot and others later died
from their injuries.
A little later there was a similar attack on a Hindu
home in the village of Sarwan. Again, automatic weapons were used, at least
eight people were killed.
July 19, 1999
Fifteen people including eight women died in a
terrorist attack in Doda district. Among the dead were five members of the
village defence committee, set up to protect remote villages from such
attacks. Another six people were wounded, four of them seriously.
In another incident on Tuesday, four construction
workers were killed in an attack on their camp in the Poonch district.
Over forty people have lost their lives in similar terrorist attacks.
March 20, 2000
Chattisinghpora Massacre
The attack late evening in this village was carried
out by 40 to 50 terrorists. They forced the residents from their homes,
segregating the men from the women. They then opened fire on the men with
automatic weapons. Thirty-four died instantly.
August 1, 2000
Amarnath Pilgrimage Massacre
At least 48 persons were killed in Pahalgam base camp
of Amarnath Yatra that attracts 120-150,000 pilgrims every year in August.
Another two massacres took place in Anantnag where 19
Hindu migrant laborers from Bilaspur in Bihar were killed; and in Doda
district where Hindu villagers were lined up and shot dead.
At least 90 people were killed in terrorist attacks
across the state.
February 8, 2001
Kot Charwal Massacre
Families of Bakkarwal shepherds who had dared to take
on terrorist groups active on the mountains above Rajouri became the victims
of terrorism today as fifteen of their members lost lives to the terrorist
bullets. They were all members of village defence committee set up to protect
vulnerable Hindu minorities, a development of some significance.
It was not until the afternoon of February 9, as the
embers of the burnt down shacks of the villagers had cooled, that the soldiers
arriving at Kot Charwal discovered the charred bodies of victims. Soon they
found the burned body of a woman, wrapped around that of the infant she had
been trying to protect. By late evening, 15 bodies had been found. Seven were
of children, the youngest of them just four years old.
May 9, 2001
Six villagers were beheaded in a terrorist attack in
Doda district after 11 Hindu villagers were confronted by a group of armed men
while grazing cattle in the remote Doda district. Several hours later, six
bodies - all decapitated were discovered by the police. Three other
villagers survived the attack with deep wounds to the throat.
July 20, 2001
Amarnath Pilgrimage Massacre
13 people were killed and another 15 wounded in an
attack by terrorists on a Hindu pilgrimage high in the Himalayas. The
terrorists exploded land mines then engaged Indian security forces in a gun
battle at Sheshnag, halfway along the route to the cave-shrine of Amarnath.
Six pilgrims, and five porters were among the dead.
July 22, 2001
Doda Massacre
Fifteen Hindu villagers were dragged out of their
homes in Doda district and shot dead at point blank range.
August 3, 2001
Massacre of Shepherds
Seventeen abducted Hindu shepherds were massacred in
an attack in Doda district, some 240 km north of Jammu. The terrorists
kidnapped 21 shepherds who had taken their animals to graze on higher ground.
August 6, 2001
Railway Station Massacre
Three terrorists, armed with automatic weapons and
wearing Indian army uniforms, launched an attack at Jammu railway station late
afternoon and killed 11 people and injured more than twenty.
March 30, 2002
Raghunath Temple Massacre
The two terrorists who carried out the assault had
arrived at the Raghunath temple complex in the heart of Jammu city just after
10-15 a.m. in a white jeep. They immediately opened fire at the guards outside
the gate, killing three of them on the spot. One terrorist was unable to enter
the temple, and was shot while trying to escape through the crowded market.
The second terrorist entered the temple complex and killed four pilgrims and
temple staff. Eight others were injured. Temple priest Jeevanand Giri escaped
death only because the terrorist's assault rifle had run out of ammunition by
the time he reached the Dattatreya temple, where prayers were being conducted.
May 13, 2002
Kaluchak Massacre
In a gruesome attack, three members of a suicide
squad of terrorists killed 30 persons, including seven bus passengers and 23
others in the family quarters of the Army, near Jammu today. Thirty-four
persons were injured in the attack, and some of them are in a critical
condition.
The attack on the bus took place around 5.35 a.m. at
Kaluchak on the Jammu-Panthankot National Highway, a few kilometres from the
Indo-Pakistan International Border. The three terrorists, who were dressed in
Army fatigues, had boarded the bus, bound for Jammu from Kulu in Himachal
Pradesh, at Samba, 30 km. from Jammu.
July 13, 2002
Qasim Nagar Massacre
A general strike paralysed parts of Kashmir on Monday
in protest at the killing of 27 Hindu civilians by suspected pro-Pakistan
Muslim militants near Jammu. The strike was
most effective in Jammu, the winter capital of Indian-administered Kashmir,
but it had ended without incident by mid-afternoon.
Jammu July 13. Twentyfive persons were killed and 21
injured, a number of them critically, when militants attacked a slum locality,
near here this evening. The dead included 10 women, nine men, and a
three-year-old boy. The militants lobbed grenades and opened fire at random on
civilians, in an area inhabited by slum-dwellers, police sources said. Some of
the victims were killed on the spot, they said, adding that there was a temple
in the vicinity of the militant strike. A few killed were near the temple.The
toll is likely to go up.
July 30, 2002
In their first strike on Amarnath pilgrims this year,
terrorists have killed two persons and left five others wounded, when a cab
was blown up with a grenade blast in Anantnag township of south Kashmir. The
broad daylight strike was carried out amid heavy security arrangements this
evening when the Jammu-bound pilgrims were returning after darshan from the
holy cave.
August 6, 2002
In the second strike on Amarnath pilgrims within a
week, unspecified number of militants in a daring act, attacked the
"heavily guarded" base camp, gunning down nine devotees and injuring
30 others in their sleep in the wee hours at Nunwan near Pahalgam today. The
Hindu pilgrims were attacked in the early hours of Tuesday morning, while they
were sleeping at a camp on their way to a shrine in the foothills of the
Himalayas. Gunmen threw a grenade and then opened fire on the travellers.
November 24, 2002
Rughnath Temple Massacre
Ten people were killed and 53 injured when a
terrorist attacked the historic Raghunath temple in Jammu on
Sunday evening, hurling grenades and firing indiscriminately on the
heavily guarded temple complex in Raghunath chowk. Over 50 people were injured.
December 19, 2002
Terrorists killed three young girls in Thanamandi
area of Rajouri district in Jammu division for not wearing burqas
(veils). The following day terrorists barged into the house of Jan Begum
in Darhal area (Rajouri district) and beheaded
her for failure to observe burqa diktat of terrorists.
According to villagers, posters by the
Lashkar-e-Jabbar, an off-shoot of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, had been appearing
in educational institutions in Rajouri district for the past one week asking
Muslim women and girls to wear burqas and
strictly follow the purdah system.
Elsewhere, at Rebbon near Sopore four members of a
family, including a six-year-old, were gunned down by
terrorists.
March 24, 2003
Nandimarg Massacre
At 2:30am on March 24, 2003, minority Hindus in the
village of Nandimarg in Kulgam-Shopian belt in southern
part of Kashmir Valley, 70 km away from Srinagar, were pulled out of their
homes, assembled under a Chinar tree and mowed
down by bullets sprayed by Islamic terrorists. The 10 to 15 terrorists who
posed as Security Forces, disarmed the 9-member
Police Guard and killed all but two Hindus, the latter escaping
with injuries. Among the 24 persons killed were two children aged 4 and 5
years, 12 women and half a dozen elderly
people.
Nadimarg
Massacre, 24 March, 2003
