Patches of blood have dried on the utensils but the memories -- of marching, screaming men in black pathan suits, sporting flowing beards -- keeps returning to torment Champa Devi. They came on Sunday night with automatic weapons on their shoulders, asked the victims to line up, tied their hands and shot them, she recalls.

Champa Devi and her husband were sleeping in a tent in Kalaban when they barged in. They took him to a bigger tent nearby and shot him. That was exactly how Malti Devi too was made a widow.

After hearing the gun shots, Champa and Malti began running. And kept going till they reached Baragarh, ten km from Kalaban. Both are from Tarera in Nurpur (Kangra) and had come to Kalaban about a monthago as construction labourers.

After the night of the killings, when 35 persons where shot dead by militants -- 24 at Khroey Behi and the rest at Satrundi -- there are several people with similar tales. Shyam Singh, a Class VII student watched his father Sant Ram being killed. (Satrundi is a two-and-a-half-hour walk from Kalaban through dense forest.)

When the militants came at night, there was no help around or even far away. Mansa is the last police post on this side of the border in Tissa and the spot of the killing is about 6 km from there. The stretch leading to the Jammu-Kashmir border is virtually a no-man's land with no regular police vigil.

The labourers -- engaged in the construction of Baragarh-Pangi road -- had never thought it could happen to them, especially since there had been no such incidents in recent years. The last militant-related incident was in 1993 when two policemen where shot by militants in Satrundi.

The police too were caught unawares. The Kehar Sector, far away fromTissa, was the actual focus of police attention following reports of terrorist movement in the area. The terrorists, it is suspected, crossed to Chamba through the Malur pass from the Kishtwar area of Doda, in view of the comparatively slack police vigil there.

Some of the villagers suspect that the militants got information about the labour camp from the nomads who come there to collect herbs. But the police don't think so. DIG, North range, I D Bhandari said: ``There were no complaints or reports about the tribals joining hands with militants against locals. There were no indications about this area being used as hideout by J&K militants.''

However, the massacre has given rise to communal tension in the area. The Tissa Block Development Committee has, meanwhile, decided to carry out a peace march in an attempt to restore communal harmony in the villages, says chairman Maan Singh Thakur. Adds DIG Bhandari: ``We will have to have a better understanding in the belt with both Gujjar Hindus and Muslimsliving here.''

After the killings, local residents are moving out. More than 4,000 villagers came down from Tissa to Tarela, leaving all the herbs they had collected. They spent the last night near a police post. ``We cannot just think of staying in our scattered houses uphill at night. There is a police post at Mansa but what can the ill-equipped policemen do?'' says one of them.

For the herb collectors, the job is seasonal and these two months are the only time in the year they earn a steady income. Others such as the workers in the Public Works Department also refuse to return.

The police claim they are doing their best. ``We have planned to rearrange police posts and make some security arrangements for the people,'' says Bhandari. But it will take more than a couple of police posts to make the villagers feel safe again.