Former PM IK Gujral inaugurated winter games in Kashmir when 23 Pandits were massacred at Wandhama
Heavily-armed terrorists swooped on the village Wandhama, now in Central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, on Lailatul Qaddr, the holiest night of the holy month of Ramzan, on the eve of the Indian Republic Day, January 25/26, 1998. While all the Muslims were busy with the nightlong prayers at the local community mosque, the resident Pandits and their guests were dragged out on the gun point. Twenty-three of them, including nine women and four children, were mercilessly massacred.
It was for the first time after the killing of seven Pandits at Sangrampora, Budgam, on 21 March 1997, that this big number of the members of the minority community was gunned down at one place.
A pall of gloom engulfed the whole of Kashmir valley, with nobody daring to publicly condemn the carnage but everybody looking melancholic. There were scenes of mourning across the ripples from Ganderbal where the revered Kheer Bhawani temple shrine stands at Tulmulla.
Obviously the bloodshed had an impact on the Republic Day. There were insipid, lacklustre ceremonial parades and no cultural programmes. Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah called for bombardment of Pakistan.
Two days later, late Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral flew in from New Delhi—not for shedding any tears for the slain Pandits but for inaugurating the national winter games at Gulmarg. He paid a customary visit to the devastated village where smoke was still billowing from the funeral pyres and hardly anyone was left to collect the mortal remains.
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