NEWSLINKS US EDITION SOUTH ASIA COLUMNISTS DIARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL THE STATES ELECTIONS ARCHIVES US ARCHIVES SEARCH REDIFF
Binoo Joshi in Jammu
Why is Doda the favorite killing field of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir?
For the erudite outsider and analysts the answer is simple: the separatists are killing there to purge the district of Hindus who are in sizeable numbers.
The guerrillas' game plan, they say, is to complete the communal division of the Himalayan state and confine Hindus to the "two and a half districts" of Jammu, Kathua and parts of Udhampur in the plains.
But to the simple folk who live in the villages that dot the mountains in Doda district, the question - why them? - will forever beg for an answer.
They have asked the question several times since August 13, 1993, when the militants first shot 16 Hindu passengers of a bus on its way to Jammu from Kishtwar.
When their community leaders explain to them that they are being killed because they are not of the same religion as the militants, the people find it hard to comprehend: if it did not happen before, why is it happening now?
But local leaders vouch for the purge along religious lines.
The Kishtwar incident was the beginning, says Daya Krishan Kotwal, president of the state unit of the Bharatiya Janta Party.
Kotwal, who hails from a small roadside village in Doda, says he has experienced enough pain already.
He has lost count of the relatives and friends who have been killed, not to speak of the countless funerals and mourning sessions he has attended.
Since 1993, death has visited Hindus of Doda at all odd moments: in sleep, at marriage parties, newly-weds on their way to start a new home, even at funeral processions.
Such large-scale deaths are always accompanied by social distortions: Doda now has the largest number of widows and orphans in the state after the Kashmir valley, the hotbed of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.
"It is becoming a problem," said a district official.
More than 1,000 children have been orphaned and nearly 200 women widowed as a result of the 20-odd massacres so far, besides daily killings, in the district.
"More disturbing is the fact that the number is rising with the militants having once again started mass killings," the official said.
Indo-Asian News Service
ALSO SEE: Militants Gun Down 15 Villagers in Doda
Back to top
Tell us what you think of this report
