{"id":5362,"date":"2016-10-01T20:50:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-01T15:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kashmir.today\/?p=5362"},"modified":"2016-10-01T20:50:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-01T15:20:45","slug":"hours-surgical-strike-shells-landed-botengo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=5362","title":{"rendered":"Hours After the \u2018Surgical Strike\u2019, Shells Landed in Botengo"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOTENGO:\u00a0<\/strong>Three shells that rained on two residential houses in Batengo Sopore Thursday night not only freaked out the villagers, but also set off a sense that Indo-Pak war has begun.\u00a0\"20160930_082254\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What made villagers certain about the outbreak of the war in this sleepy village\u20145 km from Sopore town\u2014was its timing and peaked hostility between nuclear armed neighbours India and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Earlier that morning, Sept 29, army in a first from New Delhi stated that Indian army\u2019s Ghatak<\/em> forces had carried out \u201csurgical strikes\u201d on militant launching pads inside Pakistan-administrated Kashmir. Though Pakistan immediately rubbished the claims, but the war discourse instantly gripped the valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was around 11:30 in the night when two loud thuds rattled us,\u201d Altaf Malla of Batengo\u2019s Bhat Mohalla told Kashmir Life.<\/strong><\/em> \u201cBefore we could make any sense of the strike, two shells tearing down our rooftop exploded inside my house.\u201d Luckily, he and his family escaped unhurt.<\/p>\n

In nearby Herpora Mohalla, another shell rained on Ghulam Hassan Malla\u2019s house, driving his shrieking family on streets. \u201cWe thought,\u201d Hassan said, \u201cthe war has started between India and Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three shells at the drop of a hat ended Batengo\u2019s sleep as everyone anticipated further shelling. \u201cIt was a painful night,\u201d Hassan said. \u201cEveryone was expecting worse and shivering in fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, villagers had seen a mysterious flying object trailed with a long, white smoke in sky. People from Srinagar, Islamabad and other major towns immediately reported the flying object. Many even confused it with rocket or drone; others said it was a shooting star.<\/p>\n

What happened at Batengo hours later made the villagers sure that it was indeed the same object they had spotted on skies.<\/p>\n

Next day, the villagers were told by army\u2019s 22 RR regiment camped in Botengo that the nocturnal shelling was done by them after \u201csensing some suspicious movements\u201d in the village. \u201cThose shells were harmless and were fired on trail basis,\u201d the villagers quoting a senior army officer as having said.<\/p>\n

The Srinagar-based army PRO couldn\u2019t be reached for comments despite repeated attempts.<\/p>\n

But the fact it was first of its kind of shelling in Botengo \u2014 and that too, when Indo-Pak war \u201crumours\u201d are flying thick, it was only apparently natural for Botengo to confuse it with the beginning of the war. (Kashmir Life)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOTENGO:\u00a0Three shells that rained on two residential houses in Batengo Sopore Thursday night not only freaked out the villagers, but also set off a sense that Indo-Pak war has begun.\u00a0 What made villagers certain about the outbreak of the war in this sleepy village\u20145 km from Sopore town\u2014was its timing and peaked hostility between nuclear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}