Author:
Publication: The New Indian Express
Date: February 10, 2003
After having failed to enforce compulsory
burqa in the bordering Rajouri district, militants have now turned their
guns to hapless canines. Almost 50 dogs have been killed either by their
owners or militants in various villages in the past fortnight, following
militants' threat to kill people whose dog barks at night.
However, unlike the burqa diktat,
this time the militants have not issued any threatening posters. They verbally
warned the villagers last week and soon started killing the canines in
some places.
Two days ago, militants killed two
dogs at Lah. On Sunday, an animal husbandry employee himself poisoned his
two pet dogs to escape militants wrath at Tota Morah.
According to sources Tota Morah,
Lah, Behrot, Khablan, Rajdhani and Dudasan Bala villages in Thanamandi
have been worst affected. Almost 15 dogs have been killed in Lah, besides
over half-a-dozen each at Dudasan Bala, Rajdhani and Behrot during the
past fortnight.
Sources said the diktat comes in
the wake of the recent killing of seven militants by security forces when
dogs alerted them. The militants were trying to infiltrate from across
the border at Tumberkhoo in Kanachak area. In Samba tehsil near Jammu,
two mercenaries were killed in a fierce encounter when dogs alerted the
village defence committee members about their presence in Chilla Danga
area.
Senior police officers said that
the militants' latest diktat is bound to cause resentment since most of
the villagers are shepherds and dogs are part and parcel of their lives.
"They not only help them in security, but also protect their cattle herds
from wild animals in the forests," they said.
Officials referred to a 1996 incident,
where the area saw widespread protests when an Army major killed a pet
dog. The owner of the dog approached the Defence Ministry through then
minister Maneka Gandhi. And the matter finally settled with the transfer
of the Army official.