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.
Enduring pain: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha meets the relatives of the victims | PTI
Targeted killings of minorities and migrants started in Kashmir after the revocation of Article 370. The security forces have countered the threats well, but the Rajouri attack has come as a shock. Fear and anger have gripped the district, especially Upper Dhangri and neighbouring areas. After the attack, protesters raised slogans against the police and the administration. They carried the bodies of the victims and blocked the Rajouri-Kalakote road at Dhangri Chowk, refusing to cremate the bodies until Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha met them. Sinha later flew to Rajouri and met the families of the victims.
“We will settle scores with those involved in the act,” he said. “The Army is conducting an operation in the area and strong action will be taken in the days to come.” Sinha also promised 010 lakh to the victims’ families, and assured that his administration would strengthen VDCs, some of which have reportedly been disarmed. The VDCs, set up in the mid-1990s, have had success in deterring militants in Jammu’s border areas.
After Sinha’s assurances, the six bodies were shifted to a government higher secondary school and cremated amid tight security on January 3. Security has been beefed up in and around Rajouri city and the police have announced a reward of 010 lakh for information about the killers.
Dilbag Singh, director general of police, also met the victims’ families. “It’s time to boost the VDCs,” he said. “If guns have been taken away [from VDC members], they will be returned, and more will be provided, if needed.”
Political parties in Jammu and Kashmir were unanimous in condemning the attack. State BJP president Ravinder Raina, who had to face the ire of the people in Rajouri, said the militants had killed humanity. “Patriots have been targeted. The police and the Army have launched an operation and they will not spare the perpetrators,” he said.
Eyewitnesses gave graphic accounts of the attack. “They first shot Kumar outside his house,” said an Upper Dhangri resident. “Kumar had recently been appointed in the Army’s ordnance department, but had not yet joined as he was collecting the documents he needed to submit. He died on the spot.”
The militants then entered Pritam Lal’s house and shot him and son Shishu Pal. “Several blocks away, they fired at Sharma, a retired soldier who was closing the gate of his house after hearing the heavy gunfire,” said the resident. The militants fired at Sharma’s wife and son, and three others were also injured.
Eyewitnesses said the militants then entered a house where an elderly woman lived alone. They spared her, but fired at her television. Apparently, if Balkishen had not fired in the air, militants would have killed more. “It could have been a far bigger tragedy,” said a resident.
Ranjit Tara, a resident of Upper Dhangri, said it was a planned attack to target Hindus. He said the militants checked Pritam Lal’s Aadhaar card before shooting him. According to him, the militants want to spread fear in Jammu and force people to flee, like what had happened to Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir. “We appeal to the lieutenant governor that VDCs should be armed and strengthened,” said Tara.
Dheeraj Sharma, sarpanch of Upper Dhangri, said all victims would have died if the villagers had not shown the courage to rush them to hospital. “There were bullet marks on the gates of the houses,” he said. “That tells a tale.”
Upper Dhangri is just 8km from Rajouri city and houses the district jail. The Line of Control is around 50km from the village. “Chances of the militants being fresh infiltrators are low,” said a villager. “They seem to have carried out a recce, choosing evening time to flee with ease.”
The incident comes two weeks after two civilians were shot dead on December 16 near the gate of an Army camp in Rajouri. Local people had blamed the Army for the deaths, but a third civilian, who was injured in the incident, later said in the hospital that it was militants who had opened fire. The Army camp is located on the banks of a river; Dhangri is on the opposite bank. It lends credence to the claim that the militants who attacked Upper Dhangri have been present in the area for some time.
Rajouri has witnessed several militant attacks in the past two years. From March to April 2022, four blasts took place in the Kandi Koteranka belt in the district. The police cracked the case after it arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba’s top commander Talib Hussain Shah and his associates from Tuksan village in Reasi district. On August 11 last year, five soldiers and two militants were killed during an attack on an Army camp at Pargal village in Rajouri’s Darhal area. On August 13, 2021, militants lobbed a grenade at a BJP leader’s house in Rajouri; an infant was killed and seven others were injured.
The National Investigation Agency has now taken over the Upper Dhangri case. The NIA is likely to question Shah again to ascertain whether he has any information about the attack. The security establishment is working to prevent more such attacks. The BJP, too, would want them to succeed―the political fallout is detrimental to the party, which has been controlling the Jammu and Kashmir administration since 2018.