22nd March 1997
NEW DELHI, India - Gunmen suspected of being Muslim rebels burst into homes of Hindu villagers in northern India, took away seven men and killed them.
Friday night's attacks in Sangrampora, a village 20 miles south of Srinagar in Jammu & Kashmir state, has created panic among the Hindu families.
Police said the killers fled in the dark and troops were searching for them.
Hundreds of thousands of Hindus left the Kashmir valley for Hindu-dominated areas after a Muslim separatist insurgency erupted there in 1989. A few families stayed behind to look after ancestral farmlands or businesses.
23rd March 1997
JAMMU: Anti-Pakistan slogans were raised in the sleepy hamlet of Sangrampora, a village 20 miles south of Srinagar in Jammu-Kashmir state, following the massacre of 7 Kashmiri Hindus by unidentified gunmen. The seven victims, all belonging to the same family, were lined up outside their house and murdered in cold blood.
Muslims in the area expressed deep outrage at this brutality and observed a partial strike to protest this heinous crime. A teary-eyed resident, who wished to remain unidentified, told this reporter that this was like death in his own family. The victims, who had chosen to stay back since the onset of militancy, apparently had excellent relations with their Muslim neighbours and had received repeated assurances about their safety. The last rites of the victims were performed by residents of the village and were attended by Muslims and Sikhs from neighbouring areas as well.
In Jammu, the winter capital of the State, there was wide-spread condemnation of this massacre and protest marches were held throughout the city. Jammu is home to 300,000 Kashmiri Hindu refugees who fled the Kashmir valley after they were made targets of Kashmiri separatists early in the conflict.