Kachdora encounter: 'No one tried to rescue us,' recall civilians trapped during gunfight between militants and security forces

Kachdora, Kashmir: As security forces surrounded her residence in Kachdora village of Shopian on Saturday, Mubeena Lone, in an effort to shield her daughter, pressed her up against the wall so hard that she winced in pain. Five armed militants had taken positions on the second floor of her house, carefully positioning themselves for the imminent gunfight. Outside, hundreds of troops laid a massive cordon around the house to prevent militants from fleeing.

“When she cried out, other kids also started crying. I thought this was it… that our end was near,” Mubeena told Firstpost, at her neighbours’ house, which now serves as a temporary abode for 14 members of her family. “It was dark everywhere, the only light that filtered through the curtains was from the lights used by the army.”

The village of Kachdora in Shopian is nestled deep in vast apple orchards. The village offers perfect terrain for militants to hide from the security forces. Although a military camp sits a few hundred meters on the right of Lone’s house, the fact that seven armed militants were roaming in the neighbourhood tells how volatile the region is.

On Saturday night, at around 10:30 pm, seven militants had entered the house of Mohammad Maqbool Lone, Mubeena’s husband and the eldest of four siblings. They had asked for food and the family obliged. After the militants had their dinner, Lone’s second son, Neyaz Elahi Lone, came rushing, informing the militants that security forces had cordoned off the area.

“When they heard me, they stood up, bid us goodbye and left,” Neyaz told Firstpost. Thousands of people, undeterred by any littered explosive, thronged the site of the gun battle, he said. “They must have walked barely a dozen meters to the small lane outside when few shots were fired. Two of them had fled and only five came back, who locked the door from inside,” Maqbool said.

In the 10 hours that followed, 14 members of Lone family, including two elderly couples, wives of three brothers and four children, were trapped in the house with the five militants. Outside, a large contingent comprising the Indian Army, Kashmir police and CRPF were waiting for first light. Inside, the family members were praying for the night to prolong endlessly, thinking it might be their last.

“I have three daughters and I was thinking if we got caught in the crossfire, who will cry for us… who will mourn our death? No one would be left. Our three generations would have been wiped out,” Mubeena said.

Late on Monday afternoon, as dark smoke rose from the charred remains of the house in Kachdora, Arbeen Lone, 10, played in the courtyard of her neighbour’s house. At her innocent age, she is unable to make sense of why thousands of people had gathered on the rubble that once used to be her house.

“It was destroyed by mitree (army) and we have no house now. They did not allow us to go out, but we left in the morning,” she said.

As shootouts and killings become the new norm in the Valley, the children of this troubled region are suffering the most; the loss of their innocence has devastated an entire generation. At tender ages of 13, 10 and seven, terms like army, militants, shaheed (martyr), firing, encounter, kaniganj (stone pelting), cordon, etc, have become common for Lone’s daughters.

“My books, copies and pencils were burnt down with the house. How will I go to school now?” Arbeen asked. “Papa would have got you new ones, but he has no money. Everything is gone,” Razia, Mushtaq’s other daughter, told her elder sister.

“Our children have never seen peace, and what it means,” said Abdul Ahad Sofi, a resident of Kachdora, who sat alongside Maqbool as mourners trickled in to pay condolences.

Experts say the level of ‘fearlessness’ among Kashmiri children has long crossed the threshold. “Starting from the early 1990s, our children have only seen military, militants, crackdowns and soldiers on streets. When we were young, we would run away after listening to the sirens of approaching police vans. But this generation has no idea of fear of death. They say, ‘what will the army do’? They even throw stones at them, knowing that they are walking into a deathtrap,” Mushtaq Marqoob, one of the Valley’s leading psychiatrists, said.

One of the biggest human rights organisation in the state, Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), said last week in a report that since 2003, 318 children – aged one to 17 – have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir. Of these, 144 were killed by forces and the state police, 12 were killed by militants, 147 by unidentified gunmen and 15 died in cross-LoC shelling. The report said, out of the 318 children killed, 121 were below the age of 12.

The members of Lone family said that no one had attempted to rescue them from the house, as has been the procedure during encounters when civilians get trapped. In at least six houses surrounding Lone’s, there were more than 50 people trapped. While the police rescued all the civilians from the surrounding houses, the Lone family members were not.

“They didn’t tell us to get out; no policeman, no sarpanch, no one came to get us out of the house. We left at around seven in the morning when we pleaded with the militants to stop firing for ten minutes. That is how we left,” Neyaz Lone, Maqbool’s brother, said.

Senior Superintendent of Shopian Police, Sriram Dinkar, told Firstpost the militants had taken the fourteen members of Lone family hostage. He said had the forces not restrained while dealing with civilians who were pelting stones at five locations, there would have been massive casualties.

“There was one militant among the group who did not want them to leave the house. He wanted to prolong the hostage situation,” Dinkar said. The SSP said he was aware there were children inside the house, which was why the forces showed “maximum restraint”.

Back at Kachdora, Mushtaq’s daughters walked towards their house – or what remained of it – late on Monday afternoon, as hundreds of young boys searched to retrieve whatever they could from the debris. They entered a moulded iron gate, the only thing standing of the double-storied house.  The dead body of five militants was found at the site of the gun battle.