NC delegation visits Dhangri, expresses sympathies with the victim families

‘IED blast after killings biggest security failure, VDCs provided defunct weapons’

Handover Dhangri killing case to NIA

DHANGRI, January 9: Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC), while accusing the J&K administration of fiddling with the lives of the people, has said that the weapons provided to the Village Defence Guards to defend terror attacks are defunct and not functioning properly. It said that using such weapons at the time of urgency would be only a suicidal step. 

Pertinent to mention that on the directions of Party President, Dr Farooq Abdullah, a delegation of J&K National Conference leaders headed by Rattan Lal Gupta, Provincial President JKNC Jammu along with senior party leaders visited every house of terror affected families in Dhangri and expressed grief and sympathies to the terror victims. Rattan Lal Gupta specially conveyed condolence on behalf of the NC stalwarts Dr. Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah.

On the occasion, DDC Chairman Rajouri, Naseem Laquit, DDC Dhangri Rameshwar Singh, District President NC Rajouri-Shafayat Ahmed Khan, District President Rajouri Rural-Ashok Sharma, Pardeep Bali, Abdul Gani Teli, Vijay Lochan, Bimla Luthra, Vijay Laxmi Datta and Yashu Vardan Singh, Additional Spokesperson accompanied the Provincial President.

Capt (Retd) Balraj Sharma, a senior citizen of Village Dhangri apprised the visiting senior NC leaders that over a week has passed but the security agencies have failed to make any breakthrough and bring the culprits to book. He demanded that the case should be handed over to NIA, besides all the lapses and shortcomings prior and after the event be probed thoroughly and culprits be booked. He also demanded adequate security grid in the region for people’s safety and security.  “Terrorists involved in the attack are still at large and roaming around. We are feeling insecure in our homes,” he added.

Expressing resentment against the administration, he also demanded a probe into the delay in shifting of the critically injured persons to GMC hospital Jammu. “Prince Sharma was undergoing treatment at GMC Rajouri for three days before he was shifted to GMC Jammu. Why was he not taken to AIIMS Delhi to save his life?” he said, adding the probe is a must to fix the responsibility.

NC leaders, while coming down heavily on the Govt for its failure to protect the people from terror onslaughts, questioned on the IED blast taking place at the killing site next morning. They asserted that this was a blatant security lapse that led to death of two minors. They said that Govt cannot get away conveniently by paying ex-gratia and making a few words lip sympathy. 

The senior NC leaders said that the government has cracked a cruel joke upon the people by providing useless weaponry to the Village Defence Committees/Guards as these weapons are mostly defunct and can prove quite dangerous in crisis situations to defend the people against terrorists. They demanded that the Govt should take immediate steps to provide weapons to the people which are in absolutely good condition and capable of using the same against the terrorists.

They stated that the ground realities are entirely contrary to the narratives on official as well as social media. They said that people in Dhangri Village and its surrounding areas are totally sacred by the gruesome target killings and are living under fret and fear being apprehensive of more selective killings.

After interacting with the terror struck families, the NC leaders assured that all the issues raised by the locals are quite genuine and the Party cadre while standing with them in this hour of crisis will make all possible efforts to get their demands fulfilled after taking up the same with the concerned authorities at the earliest.

Among others who were present include Block President Dhangri-Bansi Lal, Talib Akhter BDC Dangri, Nirman Singh, Ashok Sharma, Simki Sharma, Vipan Sharma, Shafi Mohd, Javid Mirza, Maqbool Hussain, Vivek Sharma, Jugal Singh, Ashok Kumar, Rohit Simky and Abdul Rashid Zonal Secretary Pir Panjal.


(NOTE: PRESS RELEASE PUBLISHED AS RECEIVED)