Four civilians were killed and six others injured when suspected terrorists opened fire on three houses of a particular community in a village in Jammu and Kashmir’s border district of Rajouri Sunday evening, officials said.
This was the first such attack in the past many years which also coincided with the first day of the New Year. Additional Director General of Police, Jammu Zone, Mukesh Singh said police, along with the Army and CRPF have launched a search operation to nab the two ‘armed men’ behind the attack at Upper Dangri village near Rajouri town.
The terrorists appeared in the village around 7 pm, opened indiscriminately firing on three houses and fled, said officials.
“The firing ended within 10 minutes. First, they attacked a house in Upper Dangri and then they moved 25 meters away and shot several people there. They also fired on another house 25 meters away from the second house while fleeing the village,” an official said. A total of 10 persons were hit by bullets and three of them were declared brought dead at the Government Medical College hospital Rajouri, while another critically injured succumbed while being airlifted to Jammu along with two other injured persons.
The deceased have been identified as Satish Kumar (45), Deepak Kumar (23), Pritam Lal (57) and Shishu Pal (32). Deeraj Kumar, sarpanch of Dangri, said that it was after a long time that targeted killings were carried out in the area. He termed the incident as a major security lapse. There was already a threat perception and searches were conducted in some areas of the district, he added. The incident caused panic and protests were held with several organisations including traders’ bodies calling for a general strike in the district on Monday.
Additional deployments have been made in sensitive areas as a precautionary measure to maintain law and order, the officials said. The incident comes barely two weeks after two civilians were killed in a firing incident outside an army camp in the town. While the army had blamed unidentified terrorists for killing the two civilians heading for work inside the camp, the local villagers alleged that the duo were killed by the sentries deployed at the gates of the camp and demanded an impartial inquiry into the incident.
(With PTI inputs)
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