Doda: Won’t let terrorists escape, say village defence guards

Arjun Sharma

Jammu, July 17

As groups of village defence guards (VDGs) move shoulder to shoulder with the security forces in the forests of Doda district searching for ultras, they have urged the government to provide better arms to them instead of .303 to fight ultras having much advanced weapons.

With the increasing terror threat in far-flung areas of Jammu, VDGs, who are trained by the Army and the police, have demanded their old .303 rifles to be replaced with modern semi-automatic weapons.

Village Defence Committees (VDCs), which are now known as VDG, are citizen defence units that were formed in October 1995 when terrorists started attacking civilians in the mountainous areas of Jammu region. It prompted the government to form these groups to retaliate the attack till security forces arrived.

On the recent attack in Doda, Sudarshan Singh, a VDG member in Doda, said intelligence about the movement of terrorists was being received for the past few days, but their exact location was not known.

“The government should frame a policy for us (VDGs). We want ex-servicemen, whether from the Army, police or the paramilitary forces, to head our groups,” Sudarshan said.

While the training of locals in several far-off villages started in Jammu region, it was mostly .303 rifles that remained with the VDGs. However some ex-servicemen in the villages were provided with semi-automatic rifles.

Ramesh Kumar, former sarpanch of Deeing village in Nowshera of Rajouri along the Line of Control (LoC), said suspicious movement of terrorists had increased in the areas of Rajouri and Poonch in the past few months and there was a need to empower the VDGs by providing them with powerful weapons.

“Terrorists are moving in jungles and remain undetected till they enter a village for food or water. We only have .303 rifles which take time for reloading. In case terrorists strike the village, it will not be possible for us to defend them with these weapons,” Kumar stressed.

“Terrorists are on the run and we will not allow them to leave this area alive,” Sanjay Singh, a VDG member from Doda said.

(With inputs from )