Militants killed four people and injured over a half-dozen on Sunday evening at a village in Jammu’s Rajouri district, before a bomb they had planted killed a four-year-old boy and his seven-year-old sister on Monday.
The twin New Year tragedies in Dhangri village belied the government’s all-is-well line on Jammu and Kashmir, which it has peddled while playing down militant killings and rejecting Valley Pandit employees’ demand for relocation to Jammu in the face of targeted attacks.
The villagers on Monday placed the six bodies on the road, refusing to perform the last rites until lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha — the staunchest proponent of the “normalcy” line — visited them. Sinha arrived in the evening and promised tough action against the militants.
The killings, barely 10km from the district headquarters, are a grim reminder of the revival of militancy in Jammu and its spread to areas long untouched by violence.
Local people said the militants had planted several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the village after carrying out the New Year carnage. Monday’s child casualties prompted protests against the government’s failure to sanitise the area after Sunday’s killings.
Two militants had stormed three homes, separated by at least 100 metres from one another, in the sparsely populated hamlet at 7pm on Sunday and fired indiscriminately.
At 9am on Monday, an IED blast near the home of Pritam Sharma, one of Sunday’s victims, injured seven people, mostly children, officials said. Siblings Vihan Sharma and Sanvi were killed.
Jammu additional director-general of police Mukesh Singh told reporters the IED had been planted under a bag. Local people said the militants had planted two more IEDs but there was no official confirmation.
A large number of police, paramilitary and army personnel had been deployed in Dhangri on Sunday evening to hunt the militants down. Questions are being asked why they had failed to detect the IED.
Apart from Pritam, 56, those killed on Sunday included his son Ashish, 33, as well as Deepak Kumar, 23 and Sheetal Kumar, 48, all Dhangri residents. Several of the injured are said to be critical.
Scores of angry protesters tried to storm the office of the deputy commissioner in Rajouri but were kept at bay by a large police contingent.
Large parts of Rajouri observed a shutdown and people shouted slogans against the administration for failing to prevent the killings.
The twin tragedies are the worst militant attacks on Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir in years and have shredded the government’s claim that the situation has improved since the August 2019 scrapping of the erstwhile state’s special status.
Protesters told Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Ravinder Raina they had voted for the BJP and yet had to face such threats under its rule (the Union Territory is governed by the Centre). They asked Raina to ensure army deployment in the area.
Raina later told Sinha the casualties could have been much higher had a village defence committee (VDC) member not fired back at the militants on Sunday.
Local people said the government had taken away the rifles of many VDC members and not returned them despite the Centre’s February decision announcing the revival of the committees. The VDCs are a private militia that fights militants and operates mainly in Jammu’s Muslim-majority districts, most of its members drawn from among Hindus.
An official said National Investigation Agency officials had arrived in Dhangri and begun a probe.
Sinha has announced a Rs10 lakh ex gratia and a government job for each bereaved family.
Dhangri village sarpanch Dheeraj Kumar told The Telegraph that Sunday’s firing lasted barely 10 minutes. “We initially thought these were crackers from New Year celebrations or a marriage,” he said.
Kumar criticised the government for failing to provide security to the village.
