The Sunday Express goes back to the house in Chinore, Jammu, where militants held eight members of a family hostage for over 17 hours. A week later, the scars of terror run deep
BIRO Devi is obsessed with the main gate. The frail 70-year-old steps out every few hours to check if the thick iron lock is in place before hobbling back into the bullet-riddled house. That morning on August 27, when three armed militants barged in and held eight members of the family hostage for 17 hours, the gate was left open.

Last Wednesday had begun early for Biro Devi’s family. The children were with their tutor and the women were busy with their household chores. At the crack of dawn, the militants barged in, spraying bullets and taking the entire family hostage—except for Biro Devi’s older son Billu Ram Bhagat who was away in hospital after a snake bite. The militants also overpowered the tutor, Ashok Kumar, and Sandeep Singh Chib, a neighbour who reached there after hearing the commotion. What followed were a chilling 17 hours during which the terrorists screamed and abused the hostages. Outside, the security forces engaged the militants in a fierce encounter, at the end of which tutor Ashok Kumar and neighbour Chib were killed. A military intelligence personnel, Sham Murari, was also killed. The family was safe but scarred.

Today, a week after guns boomed in this neighbourhood in Chinore, Biro Devi is all alone, left to obsess over the gate and the family that’s not with her. Her daughter-in-law is in hospital with a bullet injury, son Billu Ram is in hospital attending to her, and her younger son is away at his wife’s house, too scared to return. But she worries most for her grandchildren—nine-year-old Sheetal, seven-year-old Arshan, Kajal who is four and the youngest, three-year-old Vipin. The children are away at a relative’s and scarred by the hostage drama and the killings.

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