Nadimarg massacre: Gunmen killed 24 Kashmiri Pandits on Mar 23, 2003, Kashmiri Muslim recounts ordeal

Nearly two decades have passed by, but the memories of the massacre of 24 members of the minority Kashmiri Pandit community are still fresh in the minds of the residents of Nadimarg village of south Kashmir's Shopian district.

Nadimarg: Nearly two decades have passed by, but the memories of the massacre of 24 members of the minority Kashmiri Pandit community are still fresh in the minds of the residents of Nadimarg village of south Kashmir's Shopian district.

While the minority members left the valley, the Muslim villagers vividly remember how mercilessly the 24 Kashmiri Pandits were shot dead by the unidentified gunmen on the night of March 23, 2003. As per the locals, unidentified gunmen who were wearing combat dresses barged into the houses of the Kashmiri Pandits in the village at about 10.30 pm and shot dead twenty-four of them including eleven women and two children. "They knocked at the doors of Kashmiri Pandit houses when the families were going to sleep.

They asked them to assemble in a compound near the picket under a Chinar tree and fired indiscriminately upon all of them, killing twenty-four persons on the spot," an eyewitness said. Bilal, local youth from Nadimarg recalled how the burst of the gunshots had left the entire village fear-stricken. "I heard frightening voices during the night and when we woke up in the morning, the news spread like fire that 24 Pandits have been killed," Bilal said.

He said the two communities had been living in harmony with each other and shared sorrows and happiness together. "We are waiting for them (Kashmiri Pandits) to return to their houses so that we live here together again," Bilal said.