Boys play on the premises of the house owned by Sunanda’s father. The house, razed by militants, stood on the mound seen in the background

Bomai (Sopore), April 13: Sunanda Pushkar’s family was widely respected in Sopore but left home village Bomai in the dead of night when militancy erupted in Kashmir two decades ago.

Today, what remains of the family’s once elegant house, torched by suspected militants after they left, is a mound of soil overgrown with thick vegetation. Not a brick is left; everything that remained has been stolen.

Sunanda, a woman in her 40s said to be engaged to junior foreign minister Shashi Tharoor, was born into a prosperous Pandit family in the village of Bomai, some 60km from Srinagar.

Her father Poshkar Nath Dass, a retired lieutenant colonel who now lives in Jammu, owned large tracts in Bomai and adjoining villages. Sunanda’s two brothers are both army officers.

“Some 100 Pandit families lived in this village. We had a separate Dass Mohalla where they (the family and relatives of Dass) lived and we (Muslims) had good relations with them. One morning, all of them disappeared, leaving their houses, orchards and other property here,” said Ghulam Hassan Darzi, a government employee.

The village remembers Sunanda as “Pinky”, a modern girl who would wear trendy clothes. She is now believed to be in Dubai.

“Her first marriage took place in this village in the 1980s. Her family threw a big feast and invited many of their Muslim neighbours. We had a lot of fun,” said Ghulam Hassan Lone, a mill owner.

Makhan Lal Kokroo, a Bomai resident who now lives in Jammu, said Sunanda’s marriage with a Pandit boy from Srinagar, Sanjay Raina, did not click.

Raina is now a Mumbai-based singer — his website describes him as the “raja of remixes” — and runs an event management company.

“Sunanda had a second marriage, with a non-Kashmiri,” Kokroo said, referring to businessman Sujit Menon, who later met a tragic end in Delhi. After her marriage with Menon, Sunanda moved to Dubai where she worked for several companies.

Darzi said Dass was kind to his neighbours. “As an army officer, his postings would change and he would take his children along. But they would spend several months every year at their ancestral home,” he said.

Darzi said he was not surprised to hear that Dass had used abusive language today as he chased away reporters gathered outside his Jammu home. “He is a disciplined man. He would not want to be dragged into such a controversy.”

The family has sold most of its property in Bomai over the past two decades.

The villagers said Dass did not break off contact with them after he moved to Jammu. “He comes here occasionally. Last year, Pinky accompanied him,” said Peer Ziauddin, a trader.

Dass’s mother was a devotee of Sufi saint Syed Fazlullah Qazi, whose shrine is located here.

Tharoor had a Kashmir connection: his first wife Tilottama Mukherji is a granddaughter of Kailashnath Katju, a Kashmiri who was Madhya Pradesh chief minister and governor of Orissa and Bengal.