Lt Governor met affected families & assured full administration support

Government announced Rs 10 lakh reward for Terrorist’s information

• Lt Governor chaired a high-level security meet at Rajouri
• Terrorists involved in Dhangri massacre are still at large.
•  Govt announced Rs 10 lakh reward for specific inputs about terrorist
• Complete Bndh observed in Rajouri in protest against Dhangri massacre.
• Senior police/civil officers faced tough time in pacifying protesters.
• Terrorists locked woman/children in a kitchen before killing father-son duo.
• Two siblings are among the 6 killed.
• SFs/intelligence failure in tracking & tracing the terrorists who were first spotted on 13 December in Muradpur village.

Shyam Sood

Rajouri, Jan 2: New Year begins with bloodshed as the unidentified terrorists on Sunday struck at Upper Dhangri village, situated along Rajouri-Kalakot road, and 4 civilians-including father-son duo-were killed while 6 others were injured in terror shootout at about 7 pm in UT of J&K.
Surprisingly, Security Forces (SFs) failed to search the targeted houses as per prescribed SOPs during search operation launched after the incident and at about 10 am on Monday an IED planted (reportedly fitted with timer device) by the fleeing terrorists at the house of deceased Deepak Kumar exploded in which 11 persons, including 8 minor, were injured and later two minors succumbs to injuries.
The deceased minors identified as Vihan (4) s/o Sushil Kumar (died on spot) & Samiksha (16) d/o Koushal Kumar.
Today’s IED blast added more fuel to the anger of the people against the failure of the SFs to track and kill the terrorists who are operating in the area for the last about twenty days.
People alleged that it was a targeted & well-planned terror attack on Hindus and was not possible with the involvement of local support (OGWs).
All four bodies were kept at Dhangri Chowk at about 8 pm on Sunday and a massive protest was launched against the failure of SFs.
Protesters were demanding that Lt Governor should visit them to listen to their grievances and demands.
DGP, Divisional Commissioner (Jammu); Additional DGP, Jammu along with Deputy Commissioner & SSP Rajouri also rushed to talk to the protesters but they refused and said:” We will talk to Lt Governor only”.
In the meantime, many prominent citizens among the protesters claimed that IED was planted by the terrorists, who executed targeted killings, escaped & still untraced, with an aim to inflict more fatal causalities.
“Had we not kept the bodies at the chowk and shifted them to respected houses, there would have been large number of fatal injuries in the IED blast because of presence of large number of relatives, people there to mourn the death of Deepak” said people.
ADGP, Divisional Commissioner, DC & SSP Rajouri faced tough time at Dhangri Chowk to pacify the protesters and reportedly once they were rescued from the spot by their body guards.
At about 5 pm Lt Governor, Manoj Sinha reached Dhangri and met with the family members and other prominent citizens, political leaders, including Ravinder Raina, BJP State President; Vibodh Gupta, BJP state General Secretary, Dinesh Sharma, BJP district president.
“Had one VDC member namely Bhola not opened fire on the terrorists, they would have killed many other innocent civilians” informed Ravinder Raina to Lt Governor.
Later, Lt Governor held a special meeting with the families of the deceased, prominent citizens, sarpanch of the village, DDC & BDC members. Sarpanch also handed over a memorandum of their demands to Lt Governor.
While expressing condolences to the affected families, Lt Governor said; “Union and UT Governments stand firmly with them in this hour of grief, The Administration is committed to looking after their needs & issues of the affected families. The perpetrators of this attack will be punished soon”.
“Security Forces have been given full freedom. Terrorists will have to pay a very heavy price for this despicable attack soon. It is our firm resolve to crush terrorists and terror ecosystem,” he added.
Lt Governor has already announced Rs10 Lakh and a government job to the next of kin of each of those civilians martyred in the attack.
“Death cannot be compensated, it is an irreparable loss,” LG added. He also assured to strengthen Village Defence Committees (VDCs).
Lt Governor also assured in-depth investigation into the incident (massacre), including involvement of local OGWs, why the IED was not detected by the SFs on Sunday (as mentioned in the memorandum).
Lt Governor, Manoj Sinha also visited the houses of the deceased persons and met with their families.
Later he chaired a high -evel security review meeting at Rajouri with DGP and other top officers/officials of police CRPF and the Army.
On Sunday two terrorists struck in village Upper Dhangri in Rajouri tehsil and after verifying Adhaar Cards, opened firing on innocent civilians in four houses situated at a distance of about 50-100 meters.
Eyewitnesses said that both were wearing black clothes and it was a targeted killing.
Ten people were injured in the shootout out of which four succumbs to injuries, three were airlifted to GMC in Jammu and three are under treatment in GMC Rajouri.
The deceased have been identified as Deepak Kumar (23) s/o Rajinder Kumar; Satish Kumar (45) s/o Sat Pal; Pritam Lal (56) s/o Lal Chand, and his son Ashish Kumar (33).
The injured (GMC Rajouri) include Saroj Bala (38) w/o Satish Kumar; Prince Kumar (21) s/o Rajinder Kumar; & Arushi Sharma (17) d/o Satish Kumar.
Injured airlifted to Jammu include Rohit Sharma (30) s/o Gopal Das; Shub Kumar (20) s/o Satish Kumar, Pawan Kumar (36) s/o Sat Pal.
After high-level security meeting DGP, Dilbag Singh said that the government has announced Rs 10 lakh reward for intelligence leading to the culprits of Dhangri incident. the Identity of the informer shall be secured fully.
It is expected that both the terrorists involved in Dhangri massacre were first spotted in ward No; 6 of Muradpur Panchayat (on December 13) and then at Phalyana where they killed two innocent civilians on December 16 near the Army hospital.
There is large-scale resentment among the residents of Rajouri against SFs failure to trace, track and kill this group of terrorists.