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| January 25, 1998: Kashmir witnessed another migration | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 25: The 27th night of the Holy month of Ramadhan, Muslims believe, is better than 1000 months. On this night Allah the most exalted blesses the people. In 1998, the blessed night fell on January 25. While people in rest of the world stayed awake to seek pardon to their sins, a small hamlet in Ganderbal, Wandhama witnessed cold blooded massacre of twenty-three souls.
The people of this beautiful hamlet lived in total harmony. The majority community stood by the minority community during difficult times. In 1990 the Pandits migrated from Kashmir but the Muslims in Wandhama prevailed upon the minority community. They stayed back to share moments of grief and joy with them. But during the night intervening January 25-26, 1998, the Muslim males were in the mosques. Gunmen stormed the Hamlet and killed 23 members of the minority community in cold blood.
Around 11.45 p.m wailing women came rushing towards the village mosque. And in a jiffy, the blessed night turned into a nightmare for the villagers. The cold blooded massacre evoked severe reaction across Kashmir. People demanded an impartial probe and severe punishment to the culprits responsible for the massacre. The age-old bonds of brotherhood and peaceful co-existence were further damaged. The abode of the saints witnessed yet another migration.
A 16-year-old boy (name withheld) was the lone survivor and eyewitness of the gruesome incident. He said: "A group of masked gunmen barged into my house at about 11:30 pm and forced the inmates to come out. I jumped out of the wall of my house. As soon as my father, brothers and sisters came out, the gunmen shot them one by one. They cried and begged for life but the masked men showed no mercy. A gunman spotted me and asked me to come out but I hid myself beneath a heap of saw dust stored in the house. They fired indiscriminately in the rooms and at the walls from all sides. Then they left thinking I too was dead. I could not identify them but they were speaking Urdu", he said.
years have passed but nobody has been brought to justice. The police have failed to identify the killers. The file has been closed and consigned to records. A few days after the incident, the police claimed recovery of a letter from the site of the massacre in which a hitherto unknown organization Intikaam-ul-Muslimoon had claimed responsibility of the massacre. The letter, according to the police, was tagged to one of the bullet riddled bodies. The police further said that the people of both the communities in Wandhama blamed the unwise shifting of an army camp from the area a few months before the massacre.
With the closing of the case, yet another mysterious page has been added to Jammu Kashmir's beleaguered history. Justice remains a casualty. |
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