Two days after a private was attacked by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi –killing the driver, conductor and nine others – the owner on Tuesday sought ‘martyr’ status for driver and teenage conductor.
On Sunday evening, both the driver, Vijay Kumar (40) and Arun Kumar, his 19-year-old conductor were in route to the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine in Katra from the Shiv Khori temple.
All the passengers on the 53-seater bus, including the seven other victims, were from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi.
Soon the terrorist fired bullets, in which driver, conductor and nine others were killed, as the bus plunged into a gorge. Also, 41 other passengers were also injured.
“Vijay was like a family to me…the gentlest, and always smiling. He had been working with me for about six years, and I believe that he deliberately plunged the vehicle into the gorge instead of stopping it on the road to prevent terrorists from killing all its occupants,” Sujan Singh, the bus owner, told PTI in Katra.
Eyewitness claim the the driver was the first to be hit by a bullet.
“Vijay’s father Rattan Lal died over six months ago. He has (two) small children and there is nobody else in the family to see to their upbringing,” Singh added.
Singh noted that conductor Arun joined his transport company only a few days ahead of the 9 June attack, adding, Arun was the only brother to two sisters in his family.
Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has announced an ex gratia relief of ₹10 lakh each to the next of kin of the victims and ₹50,000 to each injured.