File closed, but village remembers

‘‘We have not produced the case in court. This means we can work on it any time we get a clue.’’ As ‘‘a standard drill,’’ the police rounded up some people but let them go after no progress could be made. The case, under FIR no 22/98 at the Ganderbal police station, was closed as ‘‘untraced.’’

Monday’s massacre at Nadimarg made Wundhama travel back in time. It was home once to 11 KP families but the rise of militancy in the Valley saw six families pack bags for the safer environs of Jammu. The remaining five families stayed back to tend to the fields and the orchards, the Muslim majority always at hand to help.

But on a January night in 1998, the killers arrived. Wundhama woke up to find 25 dead. Barring three, all the Kashmiri Pandits had been gunned down. The gunmen had melted into the night.

‘‘Allah will kill all those who butchered Moti Lal, Badri Nath, Avtaar Krishan, Som Bhat, Jagarnath, Krishan Nath. And if I live to see the killers, I will spit on them,’’ says village elder Ghulam Nabi Baba.

He has not forgotten Moti Lal. Wundhama’s favourite, Moti made full use of his para-medic training to nurse people back to health. ‘‘He saved me from the jaws of death, pumping injections in my half-dead body so that I could live. They killed him, his wife, two daugthers, son and daughter-in-law. But these five years are proof they still live in our thoughts. We were one big family,’’ says Ghulam Nabi.

Nazir Ahmad Ganaie has stopped visiting the grounds where he played cricket with his KP friends. ‘‘It was Shabi-Qadr day. We ran to the temple when we saw the flames. Some villagers hid themselves in chimneys after the gunshots.

‘‘Around mid-night, we rushed to the Krehmi miltary camp and police to get help. They came in the morning. It was all over — we saw 25 bodies placed on white sheets.’’

Only three of the KPs survived: Sanjay Kumar, Raju and Lal’s daughter, Didda. Hajira says the killings only strengthened Hindu-Muslim bonds.