Rajouri Firing: Top Officials, Kin of Slain Civilians Gather to Perform Last Rites; NIA Reaches Attack Site

Hundreds of people including some top officials gathered at the cremation ground in Dangri village of Rajouri district for the last rites of six civilians killed in a militant attack in the last two days.

People and kin of the victims were seen taking out the procession while raising slogans at the cremation ground.

While the last rites were underway, an NIA team also reached the Dangri village, the attack site where the civilians were slain. However, whether NIA will take over the probe into the killings or not is still unknown.

Rajouri Horror

On Sunday evening, terrorists opened fire on three houses in the area in the Rajouri district, killing four civilians and injuring six. On Monday, a four-year-old child was killed and seven people, three of them children, were injured in an IED explosion near the house of one of the victims of the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Dangri village, officials said.

The incidents, barely 14 hours apart, triggered protests across the district, including in Rajouri town, amid a complete shutdown.

LG Manoj Assures Action

Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Monday met the grieving families of the victim and said that the perpetrators of the two attacks on civilians at Dangri village in Rajouri will be punished soon and reiterated that Narendra Modi remains committed to eliminating all forms of terrorism from the Union Territory.

Expressing his condolence, Sinha said that the entire nation and the government stand firmly with the families in this hour of grief, and the administration is committed to looking after the needs and issues of all the families and people of the district.

In addition, J&K LG also announced ex-gratia and jobs for their families. “A meeting for security was also held today & we have decided to reach the core & take action against the ones behind. Security measures will be taken to protect the area,” J&K LG said after attending a security meeting in Rajouri.

Rajouri Firing a Terror Attack?

The killing of four in Rajouri district on Sunday was a terror attack, with the intention of disturbing the peace in Jammu and Kashmir, top intelligence sources told CNN-News18. The incident has led to the demand that the government should look into the promise to re-establish village defense committees (VDC) in Jammu to fight terror locally, ground intelligence reports suggest.

“The terror theatre is shifting towards Jammu because there are more Kashmiri Pandits in the region now, making target killing easy,” according to top intelligence sources.

“These killings are done with the intention of showing the administration in poor light. They are also aimed at creating a communal divide. This is a revival of terror activities in the Jammu region,” they said.

The Resistance Front (TRF) has refuted that it was a terror attack, but firing and the improvised explosive device (IED) blast suggest a professional hand, said intelligence sources.

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