The 2006 Doda massacre was a mass murder of 57 Hindu civilians in two separate incidents by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants in the Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir, India on 30 April 2006.
Attacks
editTwo separate attacks took place on 30 April 2006 in close by areas.
In the first attack, twenty-two unarmed Hindu villagers, mostly shepherds or their families, were lined up and gunned down in Thawa village in Kulhand area of Doda district.[1] The victims included a 3-year-old girl.[2] Ten to twelve people wearing Indian Army uniforms carried out the massacre. The doctor who was sent to do the post mortem examination suffered a heart attack on seeing the bodies and was admitted to the hospital.[3]
The second attack occurred in the Lalon Galla village in Basantgarh area of Udhampur district. Thirty-five Hindu shepherds were kidnapped and shot dead on the same day.[2]
The attacks were believed to have been an attempt to derail the impending talks between the Indian government and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.[4]
Perpetrators
editThe killings received widespread condemnation, including from the President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The BJP accused unidentified "terrorists" of carrying out ethnic cleansing.[5] Others accused the Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen.[2] India blamed the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and called it "cross border terrorism".[6]
In 2007, Australian government attributed the massacre to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which it declared to be a terrorist organisation.[7]
References
edit- ^ "34 killed in held Kashmir". Dawn. Pakistan. Agence France-Presse. 2 May 2006. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ a b c Swami, Praveen; Puri, Luv (2 May 2006). "Serial terror strikes claim 35 lives in Doda and Udhampur". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 9 March 2007. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ Sharma, S. P. (2 May 2006). "22 Hindus massacred in Doda". The Tribune. Chandigarh. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ "Militants massacre 34 Hindus in Indian Kashmir". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Agence France-Presse. 1 May 2006. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ "Doda massacre part of ethnic cleansing: BJP". The Hindu. 2 May 2006. Archived from the original on 30 June 2007. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ "'Militants' kill Kashmir Hindus". BBC News. 1 May 2006. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ "Criminal Code Amendment Regulations 2007 (No. 12) (SLI No 267 of 2007)". Australasian Legal Information Institute. UTS and UNSW Faculties of Law. 7 September 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2023.