Days after seven Hindus were killed in a village in disputed Kashmir, hundreds of residents staged protests across the region's Hindu-dominated areas
DHANGRI, India -- After seven Hindus were killed in early January in two back-to-back attacks in Dhangri village in disputed Kashmir, former Indian army soldier Satish Kumar described his sleepy mountainous village as an “abode of fear.”
Days after the deadly violence in the village in frontier Rajouri district, where homes are separated by maize and mustard fields, hundreds of residents staged angry protests across the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. In response, Indian authorities revived a government-sponsored militia and began rearming and training thousands of villagers, including some teenagers.
Kumar was among the first people to join the militia under the new drive and authorities armed him with a semiautomatic rifle and 100 bullets.
“I feel like a soldier again,” said the 40-year-old Kumar, who runs a grocery store since his retirement from the Indian military in 2018.
The militia, officially called the “Village Defense Group,” was initially formed in the 1990s as the first line of defense against anti-India insurgents in remote Himalayan villages that government forces could not reach quickly.
As the insurgency waned in their operational areas and as some militia members gained notoriety for brutality and rights violations, drawing severe criticism from human rights groups, the militia was largely disbanded.
But the January violence stirred unpleasant memories of past attacks in Rajouri, which is near the highly militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan and where combat between Indian soldiers and rebels is not uncommon.
Brandishing his weapon inside his single-story concrete home on an overcast February day, Kumar justified his decision to join the militia as the “only way to combat fear and protect (my) family from terrorists.”
“I am a trained person and have fought against terrorists. But what is the use of (military) training if you do not have a weapon,” Kumar said. “Believe me, I felt almost incapacitated due to fear.”
On January 1, two gunmen killed four villagers, including a father and his son, and wounded at least five others. The next day, a blast outside one of the houses killed two children and injured at least 10 others. It is still unclear whether the explosive was left behind by the attackers. A week later, one of the injured died at a hospital, raising the overall death toll to seven.