Author: Deepak Khajuria
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: August 29, 2008
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/354623.html
Sheetal, Arshil, Kajal and Vipan would like
to forget Wednesday as quickly as possible, but they probably never will.
Three militants in khaki who locked the children in a room and threatened
to put bullets in their heads if they so much as wept have, in 17 blood-soaked
hours, scarred them for life.
A day of gunfire and trauma came to an end
with six bodies being taken out of Billu Ram Bhagat's yellow two-storey house
on the outskirts of Jammu some time before midnight. Three of the dead were
killers of the other three - Billu's tenant and his children's tutor Ashok
Kumar, the family's neighbour Sandeep Singh Chib, and Military Intelligence
Jawan Sham Murari who had followed the militants to the house.
The children, who could barely speak from
the shock as they were rescued, began to tell the tale of their horror on
Thursday afternoon.
"It was very, very scary... we were locked
inside a room and the men holding guns said that they will kill us if we wept,"
said 9-year-old Sheetal, eldest of the children, standing by her mother's
bed in hospital. "When Vipan, my three-year-old brother cried out in
terror, they warned my mother and me to keep him quiet or they would shoot."
Billu's wife Sunita Devi was hit by a bullet in the exchange of fire.
Sitting on her father's knee, 4-year-old Kajal
spoke of the militants' threats, and of being repeatedly slapped into silence.
"Woh hamein maarne ke liye bolte the... aur chup karne ke liye baar baar
thappad maarte the..."
Billu hugged Kajal tightly, saying, "I
had lost all hope. My family has come out of the jaws of death." Tears
rolling down his face, the father who was not in the house when the militants
entered, whispered, "God and the army have given us a second life today."
Billu's brother Tarsem Kumar Bhagat-who was held hostage along with his wife
Rita Dev-and the brothers' mother Biro Devi, 70, haltingly described how the
terrorists entered their home, and what happened afterward.
"I was milking the cow when the three
men entered. I first thought they were policemen looking for some suspects,"
Biro said. Tarsem added: "It was around 6 am. I ran towards the room
on the first floor where the children were sleeping."
Tarsem was the only man among the three present
in the house who survived. The first to die was Jawan Sham Murari, who appeared
at a door soon after the militants had taken over the house.
"The militaryman in the civvies was killed
soon after the militants entered the house," Tarsem said. "Some
time later, one of the three climbed up to the first floor. I followed him.
He entered Ashok's room, and soon after, killed him.
"One militant then took up position in
Ashok's room. Two remained on the ground floor. They directed me to take all
the children from their first-floor room to the ground floor," Tarsem
added.
Around 11 am, just before Biro walked free,
security forces took out one of the militants. It triggered a wave of anger
and frustration in the other two, and they took it out on Sandeep, the family's
neighbour. "They took Sandeep to another room and tortured him brutally
before killing him," Tarsem said.
Biro was then ordered to go out and give a
signal to the security forces that there was no one else in the house. "They
pushed me out of the first floor door," she said. "But when I came
out, I signaled to the army persons on the roof that there were still two
militants on the ground floor. As I reached the staircase, suddenly an army
jawan pulled me up and I was rescued."
The old woman said the militants had asked
for water, and told the family that only she should come close to them. "Then
asked for something to eat. I said there was nothing, so they demanded some
milk. The militants who were on the ground floor drank it. Later, they kept
demanded water repeatedly."
"It is not easy for any of us to narrate
the clear picture, as we are still in trauma," Tarsem said. "It
was like a horrible dream, but thanks to god and the security forces, my children
are safe," Biro said.
