On a chilly winter afternoon, eleven-year-old Siama accompanied her father and two elderly women to the local police station to collect the body of her 60-year old grandfather killed in an Army operation that went horribly wrong.Nearby, hundreds of villagers shouted slogans against the Army and the state government, demanding punishment for the troops who had allegedly opened fire on these villagers protesting harassment during a search operation. Two survived bullet injuries and five others were allegedly lashed by iron chains by the troops who swooped on the village in the wee hours looking for militants.The Army admits an elderly villager was killed in their firing but stressed it was an ‘‘act of self defence’’. Yesterday, two civilians were killed when the Army had opened fire at Chitru village in Budgam to “counter” a protest against the ‘‘bad behaviour’’ of the troops with an elderly villager. The state government ordered a magisterial probe while the Army is also conducting an inquiry. Today, Minister of State for Home Abdul Rehman Veeri described Chitru incident as a ‘‘blot on our face’’ while Chief Minister Mufti Md Sayeed ‘‘instructed that police should accompany the Army and security forces during all the cordon and search operations’’ to avoid such incidents.But Siama was inconsolable. Tears welling in her eyes, she said her grandfather, Khaliq Sheikh, was hit by a bullet when soldiers moving in a truck fired ‘‘indiscriminately’’ on a group of protesting villagers. ‘‘They came with scooter chains and long sticks and started hitting out at everyone who passed by them,’’ she said. Villagers said the Army demanded they should handover a militant, Fayaz Ahmad alias Peth of Lashkar-e-Toiba, to them or face the consequence.Hakbara lies to the left of the Hajin — an area once controlled by Kashmir’s founder counter-insurgent commander, Kuka Parray. Giving details of the today’s incident, villagers said they woke to the morning announcement made in the local mosques that troops had come for search operations in Hakbara, Pahlipora and Yarabal and that they should assemble in the compound of the local school for identification.‘‘As we were moving towards the compound, an Army officer named Khan hit me on my head. I started bleeding and was led to the ground by two youth. I saw a lot of youngsters were being beaten up with iron chains, lathis and rifle butts,’’ said Samad Dar, 60, removing the round Kashmiri cap to reveal the wounds on his head.His left foot soaked in blood, Yasin, 18, could barely walk. Removing his pheran and shirt, he showed several torture mark on his shoulders. ‘‘The troops took me and two other youth to a nearby house and beat us with lathis and rifle butts. They wanted to know where the militants were hiding,’’ he said. A spokesman of 15 Corps, however, insisted that the troops have acted in self defence. ‘‘There was some information about the presence of terrorists in the village. A group of people started pelting stones, injuring an officer and two others. Then a policeman and a jawan was injured when they were stabbed,’’ he said. Hemant Lohia, Deputy Inspector General of Police, said villagers had objected to the searches and even stabbed a jawan and a cop, besides injuring four others. ‘‘The Army had to fire in self defence in which one person was killed and two injured,’’ he said. ‘‘Yesterday, we saw that people had hurled kangris on troops and today they have resorted to stabbings to provoke them. This is a deliberate design to defame the forces,’’ Lohia said.
