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Home ministry team to visit Rajouri today

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

The special home ministry team, which airdashed to Jammu yesterday, will visit the curfew-bound Rajouri today.

Eleven Hindus were massacred in the district on Saturday.

The team, led by home ministry joint secretary Rakesh Hooja, will take stock of the situation and have detailed discussions with the security force officials.

The team will also hold further talks with state officials and Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah later.

Dr Abdullah flew to village Brylana in Udhampur district on Sunday, where militants had gunned down nine members of a family.

Recounting the gory incident, the villagers told the chief minister that the militants forced their entry into the house of one Dewan Singh and sprayed bullets on the inmates killing nine family members.

"You are not alone in this hour of grief and the sympathies of the people of the state are with you," Dr Abdullah told the mourners.

Jammu Divisional Commissioner B S Jaswal told Rediff On The Net over phone that those killed in Rajouri and Udhampur districts were cremated on Sunday.

Admitting that the situation in the two districts was tense, he said there was no report of any untoward incident during the cremation.

He said curfew would be relaxed today if the situation improves.

On the instructions of the chief minister, security arrangements in the remote villages of the two districts have been beefed up further. More troops have been rushed to the vulnerable areas and searches have been intensified.

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