Wedding turns to funeral at Udhampur

The marriage has been postponed but Dev Raj — brother of the bride, Gupta Devi — is still busy.

On Wednesday, he was supervising the marriage and today he was running about ensuring the well-being of his injured relatives at the Government Medical College (GMC) Hospital here.

‘‘After that (the blast) it was the cries and screams of women and children that rent the atmosphere. For a moment I felt numb. But the next moment, I jumped towards my room and picked up the service rifle of my father to open fire in the direction of the militants who were indiscriminately firing at us,’’ said Raj.

Writhing in pain on a hospital bed, Rajo Devi narrated how the splinters claimed her sister’s life. Devi was sitting among the guests when a sudden flash of light followed by deafening sound made her fall unconscious. ‘‘Few minutes later, I heard someone among the injured crying for water. Before I could reach to Nimmo, she succumbed,’’ said Devi. On other bed lay Jatti whose eyes were filled with tears as she saw her new shirt being torn off by the doctors to nurse the wounds on her arm.

With no police and security personnel reaching the area till morning, it was the VDC members who for whole night had to keep the militants engaged with the available fire power.

‘‘My hands started trembling when I discovered I had only one bullet left. Thank God, the militants fled before I had to use that,’’ said Dev, a VDC member.

Amid the shelling, Preeti Singh, a medical assistant, administered pain killers and medicines to the injured.

‘‘It was because of Preeti’s medicine that I could pass the whole night. Otherwise, I would have died of pain,’’ said Shakuntala Devi, whose right arm has been injured.

The sound of choppers this morning had brought a sigh of relief on the faces of all trapped there. Then began the work of moving the injured to the hospital. ‘‘My sister can tie the nuptial knot some other day. Right now, it’s more important for me to see that all the injured see the next day of their life,’’ said Raj, when someone at the hospital asked him about the postponement of marriage due to militant attack.