Two children were killed and nine others, including six women injured, in the border district of Rajouri when an improvised explosive device (IED) planted in a house by terrorists during last night’s targeted attack early in the morning on Monday. The death toll in the back to back terror incidents in the Upper Dungri village of Rajouri within 10 hours has risen to 6, while 15 have been injured.
The dead children have been identified as a 4 years old boy Vihan, who died on the spot and was reported brought dead in the hospital and 16 years girl Sumiksha, who was critically injured and succumbed while under treatment.
These incidents evoked angry protests against the J&K administration and people refused to cremate bodies of the killed and blocked the approach to the village by placing corpses of the six on the road. They were demanding that the Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha should personally visit the village and listen to their woes.
Irate residents of the village heckled the J&K BJP chief Ravinder Raina when he reached there. They raised slogans against the LG and the administration. They complained that the district police had a few days ago taken back weapons of the village defence committee members and not returned them.
The IED blast is being seen as negligence of the police that failed to properly sanitize the three houses in which terrorists had barged and indulged in indiscriminate firing. The IED was hidden under a bag.
Jammu and Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha condemned the attack in Rajouri and also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh and a government to the next of kin of slain civilians. He also announced relief of Rs.1 lakh to each seriously injured. “I strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Rajouri. I assure the people that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished. My thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families,” office of LG J&K tweeted.
After Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha personally visited the terrorism hit Dungri village angry residents of the village removed bodies of 6 persons killed in a targeted terror attack.
The LG visited the village square where bodies of the 6 victims were placed to block the roads. He consoled the bereaved families.
LG accepted the demand of residents of the area who demanded strengthening of the village defence committees.The LG assured them that an in-depth enquiry will be held into the incident. DGP and other senior officers briefed the LG about the incident.
Meanwhile, a team of NIA has reached the spot to enquire into the incident of targeted killing.
On Sunday night two terrorists one after another barged into three houses of Rajender Sharma, Satpal Sharma and Pritam Sharma, in the Hindu Brahmin dominated Devi Mohalla of Dungri village killing four persons. Thereafter, terrorists planted IEDs in two houses before fleeing towards the Argi village. The four killed last
night have been identified as Pritam Sharma, 56, son of Lal Chand and his 33-year-old son Ashish Kumar, Deepak Kumar, 23, son of Rajinder Kumar, a PHE employee and Sheetal Kumar, 48, son of Sat Pal.
Additional DGP Jammu Mukesh Singh said that the blast occurred near the house of last night’s first firing incident. Another IED has been spotted which is being cleared.
J&K DGP Dilbag Singh, ADGP Mukesh Singh, divisional commissioner Ramesh Kumar and top officers of the Army and CRPF flew to the village from here to personally supervise the anti-terror operations.