Doda, at hell8217;s gate

For a journalist on the crime beat, counting bodies and desperately trying to identify them is just part of the job. But when the body count...

For a journalist on the crime beat, counting bodies and desperately trying to identify them is just part of the job. But when the body count passes all human reckoning, the experience can be nightmarish even for the hardbitten.In the wee hours, my cameraman and I set out for Doda, where merciless killers had enacted yet another gory drama of death. Deep down, I was petrified. I knew that the body count was far higher than what I had grown used to on my rounds of the mortuary at Jammu. Every other day, I would get to see a stab victim8217;s body, at most. So I was apprehensive, but the idea of reporting from the spot counterbalanced my fear.

The signs of the tragedy that had befallen the villagers of Malwa and Prem Nagar were all too obvious the moment we entered Doda town. A strong posse of paramilitary jawans, their fingers on the triggers of their self-loading rifles, waved us down. We said we were pressmen, and one of them curtly replied: 8220;You can go ahead, but only at your own risk.8221; The warning was notquite strong enough to deter us.

But we were unprepared for the scene at the District Police Lines DPL, far more frightening than the forces out on patrol in the area. Wailing mothers, heartbroken sisters and a desperate father trying to trace the body of his slain son. Here, the very gates of hell had opened. The bodies of the twenty-five massacre victims had been kept in a tin shed at the DPL. The bodies had been brought from Chapnari a day earlier. The stench was sickening.

At the far end of the shed was the father of one of the victims, a shattered man sitting on his haunches beside the body of his teenage son. This dazed man provided the first quote8217; of my story. It was cruel of me to ask him to recount the entire sequence of events of the fateful day but, as my peers had been saying, it was the call of duty. Intermittently breaking down, he almost ran out of words when he pointed to a body placed at the far end of the shed.

It was that of the garlanded bridegroom, Khem Raj, who was returninghome with his bride when the militants cruelly brought an end to their brief marriage. My photographer Chandan Giri, with the help of a policeman, removed the shroud from the groom8217;s body and clicked what turned out to be a front page picture. Outside, a regular scramble for quotable quotes8217; was in progress.

The visiting press corps were bombarding the eyewitnesses with all sorts of queries, garnish for their stories. I, too, like a thorough professional, started scribbling the eyewitness accounts on my notebook, amidst wailing mothers and families. This process of putting uncomfortable queries to people whose world had collapsed was draining me emotionally but professionally, there was the satisfaction of conveying to the world outside the magnitude of this tragedy.

There was, particularly, the tale of the two teenaged brides for whom yet another struggle was beginning. Moved by their misery and helplessness, I wanted to help them, but at the back of my mind was the deadline for my story. I had toreturn, leaving them at the mercy of a superstitious society.On the way back, our vehicle slowed on a curve where a crane was at work on a wrecked bus. Over 50 people were killed in this accident on the very day of the Chapnari massacre.

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I imagined more of my colleagues seeking quotes8217; from the wailing relatives. Some inconsolable widow must be sitting next to the body of her husband, some desolate father must be sitting in the corner of his empty home and some children must be trying to come to terms with a new reality in which certain things can no longer be taken for granted. Somewhere out there, the gates of hell had opened again.