Author: Mohit Kandhari
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 2, 2006
Udhampur massacre toll rises to 13 ---- Early
on Monday morning, heavily armed militants shot dead 19 Hindu villagers in
Doda, sending a chilling reminder that militant groups could derail the peace
process and dialogue in the State.
A child injured in the attack receives treatment
at a hospital in Jammu - AP
The incident occurred hours after the police
recovered the bodies of four Hindus from village Ludana, Basantgarh in Udhampur
on Sunday night. On Monday, nine more bodies were found in the area. Militants
had abducted at least 15 villagers from the area on Sunday.
Giving details of the Doda incident, Director
General of Police Gopal Sharma said at around 2 am, about 10 heavily armed
Laskhar-e-Tayeba militants, wearing army fatigues, ordered people out of their
houses in two localities - Panjoli and Thava - of Kulhand village, about 200
km from here.
The militants then herded the people into
the homes of two local village heads and opened indiscriminate fire, killing
19 people and injuring nine, Sharma said. While 10 people were killed in Thava,
nine were gunned down in Panjoli.
Village heads Gopi Chand and Jagdish Bhagat
were among those killed. Bhagat's daughter Sapna Devi too was killed while
his wife Giloo Devi and another eight-year-old daughter were among the injured.
One of the eight injured in the Kulhand massacre, Rajinder Sharma who was
airlifted to the Jammu Medical College on Monday morning besides 7 others
told the Pioneer from his hospital bed, "a group of heavily armed militants
dressed in army uniforms entered Thawa at around 11.00 pm and told one of
our village elders to collect villagers for a meeting. When the people came
out and were walking behind them, the militants separated the group and opened
indiscriminate firing."
"They pumped bullet after bullet into
the group of unarmed people," he added. He said, "there is no Army
post. Initially our villages were guarded by members of the Village Defence
Committees but for the last several years the VDC members have gone to a different
area."
He added, "we had been pleading with
the Government authorities for establishing Army pickets after we felt threatened
by the free movement of militants in our area. But nothing was done."
Desperate to avenge the heavy voter turnout
during by-polls in the State, militants predictably engineered the gruesome
attack on the minority Hindu community ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
round table conference in Srinagar on May 25 and Delhi-Hurriyat talks in New
Delhi on May 3.
Condemning the dastardly attack, Chief Minister
Ghulam Nabi Azad said militants were trying to create a divide between the
two communities and appealed to the masses to display the spirit of brotherhood
and remain united.
The Chief Minister visited the injured in
the hospital and wished them early recovery. At his residence, he told reporters
that the State Government would equip village defence committees with modern
weaponry. Sources said, no village defence committee member was posted in
the village Kulhand for the past several months despite the huge presence
of VDC members in the Doda district.
Inspector General of Police, Jammu range SP
Vaid said those killed in Doda were mostly shepherds. "The massacre was
a pre-planned one and obviously it was an attempt to derail the upcoming talks,"
he said.
