A story of three weddings and 25 funerals

Both Khem Raj and Thoru Ram were to marry each other’s sisters. While the former was returning home after marrying Thoru’s sister at Malwa, the latter along with his marriage party was accompanying Khem’s barat to his fiancee’s house at Prem Nagar when militants struck. Twenty-five men of both the marriage parties, including the two bridegrooms, succumbed to their spray of bullets.

Khem Raj’s younger brother, Seesh Ram, who was married only a day earlier at Prankote, was also among the dead. He along with his bride was accompanying his brother home. Another brother, Dev Raj, too was killed by themilitants.

As news about the biggest ever massacre by militants spread in the hilly district, a pall of gloom descended both on Malwa and Prem Nagar. All celebrations at the houses of Thoru and Khem Raj came to an abrupt halt.

Tempers ran high and shopkeepers downed their shutters in protest against the gruesome killings. Within minutes, the small hamlet, which was abuzz with activity, bore a deserted look.

"I was waiting for Thoru’s barat at Doda," said the deceased’s cousin Dev Raj Sharma, an employee in the Revenue Department. Sharma said that he had decided to accompany the barat from Doda to Prem Nagar as he could not get leave to go to Malwa. "Suddenly, I heard that militants had killed some persons at Chapnari on the Doda-Bhagwa road and rushed to the hospital to wait for the victims," he added.

Charan Dass, a carpenter from Prem Nagar, had taken a day off from work to accompany his uncle Khem Raj’s barat. Now admitted in the Government Medical College Hospital with bulletinjuries, he recalled that the marriage parties had left Malwa on foot to reach Chapnari for boarding a bus scheduled to reach there at 12.30 pm. As the bus was late, they decided to wait at a roadside kiosk. The baratis were sharing jokes with each other over tea, when a van stopped there. Dass said that as one of them was wearing an olive green uniform, they were thought to be armymen. Four of them entered the kiosk, he added.

Some members of the majority community, who were also sitting there waiting for the Doda-bound bus, were asked to leave the spot by the militants. Even some people, who had parked their Gypsy and a truck outside, were allowed to go by the militants, he said. Another injured, Som Raj of Kai village, said the militants first asked the baratis to hand over cash and ornaments to them. Thereafter, they asked all the male members to stand in a queue and opened indiscriminate firing on them.

"Soon after I fell on the ground after being hit by a bullet, I was buried underthe bodies of the other victims," Som Raj said. Pointing out that the militants continued firing on the men till they took them as dead, he said only those survived who were buried under dead bodies of others.