Introduction: Militants massacre 11 Villagers in their sleep in Poonch
Separatist guerrillas raided a sleepy hamlet before dawn on Saturday and massacred at least 11 people in the mountainous Surankote area of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir.
The incident, targeted at a Muslim community of shepherds, is bound to serve as the grim backdrop of the secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan starting on Sunday. Pakistan foreign secretary Riaz Khokhar told reporters on arrival in New Delhi that the "fundamental issue" of Jammu and Kashmir would be discussed along with other matters with "great sincerity and seriousness".
Later on Saturday, Khokhar had a two-hour meeting with firebrand Jamaat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, in which the pro-Pakistani leader is understood to have been asked to align with Itihadi Force, an amalgam of neutral separatist leaders not favouring direct talks with the Centre. Diplomats of the Pakistan high commission also participated in the talks.
Meanwhile, the Jammu police, describing the Saturday massacre, said a group of about 60 villagers had come for a night's stay to the mud hutments at Thiyali Katha, 4 km from Marha. They said terrorists barged into the hutments and opened indiscriminate fire on the villagers while they were fast asleep, killing 11 on the spot.
Among the dead was Gulzar Hussain and his three-year-old son, who had come to graze the family's herd of sheep. A 75-year-old was also among those killed, police said. Senior police officers said the group of shepherds and their children were targeted because several of them belonged to a Village Defence Committee (VDC) and were considered "informers" for the army and the police.
The police had given the VDC members basic weapons training and some guns. Jammu zone IGP P L Gupta said the massacre was a message by terrorists to dissuade Muslims from being a part of the Indian security set-up.
Waking up in panic, the VDC members
retaliated with about 350 rounds of fire, forcing the terrorists to retreat,
thus preventing a bigger massacre. The terrorists, the villagers
said, fled towards the woods. No group has claimed responsibility
for the incident so far.
Pranab talks tough
While holding that India will not
allow terrorist strikes to derail the ongoing peace process with Pakistan,
defence minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday directed the army to further
step up counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir. He told
TNN there would be "no let-up" in antiterrorist operations until terrorism
was rooted out completely.
Ircon pulls out J&K staff
Work on the Qazigund-Baramulla rail
project was suspended on Saturday with Ircon withdrawing its engineers
and its employees going on a one-day strike to protest the killings of
a company engineer and his brother by terrorists. This is the first
time Ircon has taken such a step since work on the Rs 5,500 crore project
began in the Kashmir Valley.