BITING THE BULLET

The terror strike in Rajouri district poses fresh challenges to security forces in Jammu

- TARIQ BHAT

AT 7PM ON JANUARY 1, terror struck Upper Dhangri village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district. Under the cover of darkness, two masked militants attacked three houses standing 50 metres apart. The shooting lasted ten minutes, but the residents had no idea who the assailants were or why they were being attacked.

The firing ceased after Balkishen, a member of the village defence committee (VDC), grabbed his .303 rifle and fired a few shots in the air. The militants fled thinking security forces had arrived. As the people in the houses began crying out for help, Upper Dhangri’s Hindu community of more than 5,000 people soon found out that 10 of them had been injured in the shooting.

The victims were rushed to the government hospital in Rajouri. Three of them—Deepak Kumar, 23, Pritam Lal, 57, and Satish Sharma, 45—were declared dead on arrival. Pritam Lal’s son Shishu Pal, 32, died while being flown to Jammu in an Army helicopter. The others had suffered multiple bullet wounds, and are in government hospitals in Jammu and Rajouri.

The morning after the attack, an improvised explosive device went off near Lal’s house. Two cousins—Vihan Kumar, 4, and Sumiksha Devi, 16—and five others, including two children, were injured. The device was aimed at security personnel inspecting the site.

Majority of the people in Jammu are Hindus, but in Rajouri and Poonch districts, which border Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), they are in the minority. Hindus in Rajouri were last targeted in 2002, when militants attacked a wedding party killing 16 people.