Terror stalks J&K villagers

JAMMU: Militants raided a sleepy hamlet before dawn on Saturday and massacred 11 people in the mountainous Surankote area of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir.
The deceased, including a woman and a three-year-old boy, belonged to a Muslim community of shepherds.
Nine others were injured when militants opened fire on the group of villagers from Marha, who had gathered at a field in the nearby Thiyali Katha hamlet, to graze their cattle at 4 a m.
The police said the group of around 60 villagers was staying overnight in mud hutments at Thiyali Katha, about 4 km from Marha.
The terrorists, according to the police, barged into the hutments and opened indiscriminate fire on the villagers while they were still fast asleep, killing 11 of them on the spot.
Among the dead was Gulzar Hussain and his three-year-old son, who had come out to graze the family’s herd of sheep. The others who were shot dead were Imtiaz Ahmed (4), Naiz Ahmad (8), and Nazakat Hussain (14). A 75-year-old was also among those killed, police said.
Senior police officers said the group of shepherds and their children were targeted because several of them belonged to a Village Defence Committee (VDC) and were suspected of being "informers" for the Army and the police.