JK militants massacre 35 Sikhs to steal thunder from Clinton visit

Another group of the gunmen was busy in the adjoining Shokeen mohalla. “Wewere around 17 men outside the Samenderbagh gurdwara. They (gunmen) asked us to line up in front of the wall. Then they asked for our identitycards,” said K Singh, a teacher. “They had liquor bottles in their hands and started drinking. This is when I felt something fishy and I sat down. Then it was hell. They fired indiscriminately, barely from a five feet away,” Singh said. Singh survived as he was lay down on the ground and the gunmen were aiming at chests and heads. After a few hours, when the gunmen fled, everybody around him was dead. “There were only bodies around me. I was completely soaked in blood,” he said.

Three families in this village have no male members left. Fakir Singh’s family has five dead. Two sons, Karnail Singh and Sheetal Singh, grandsons Rajinder Singh and a visiting son of a daughter, apart from Fakir Singh himself were killed in the massacre. Fakir Singh’s brother Ragunath Singh was also killed along with his two sons.

There were just wails and screams in every corner of the village. Thebodies were taken inside the Gurdwara and kept in a line in the compound,and Sikhs from the entire Kashmir valley pouring in to pay their respects. “There is nothing left in my life now. I only see blood,” said Prakash Kour, 35, who has lost a dozen relatives in the massacre. “I don’t know why they did this to us,” she wailed.

The villagers, however, catagorically claimed the gunmen were foreignmilitants in army disguise. “The militants would come to our villageoften for shelter and food. And we would always provide it to them,” saidHukumat Singh, another villager. “They were here only four days ago. And we never knew they are going to do this to us,” he said.

The village is around 30 km from Anantnag and there is just one road linking it to Anantnag. The news of the massacre reached the nearest police station at around midnight and the first police party led by SSP, Anantnag Farooq Khan, reached the spot at 2 am. “It was very dangerous as we were apprehensive of improvised explosive devices planted all along the road,” Khan said. He said though the identity of the militant group responsible for the gruesome act was not clear, the Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toeba are active in the area.