Social environment in Jammu and Kashmir has come a phenomenon which is being perceived as a major setback to the process of stabilisation and peace besides the template of targeting defenceless minorities or other civilians are the softest of soft targets causing maximum impact on the psyche of people.
Kashmir Valley’s bloodstained landscape was spattered in red, once again, last week when a government employee was shot dead by millitants at his office. The killing of the Kashmiri Pandit has sparked protests across Jammu and Kashmir. The community has suffered from a mass exodus in the 1990s when it was targeted by separatist militants and, subsequently, from murders and massacres. Yet the latest killing comes at a time when the Narendra Modi government has repeatedly promised a break from the past for Kashmiri Pandits while rewriting J&K’s compact with India ostensibly to crush terrorism. The Centre’s response raises serious questions about that promise. The protests from aggrieved Pandits have been met with the brute force of police batons and tear gas — from a security apparatus that reports to New Delhi since the scrapping of Article 370. Many of the Pandits working as government employees returned to their ancestral homeland as part of a prime ministerial scheme aimed at bringing the community back to J&K. Now, those employees have threatened mass resignation, pointing out that the latest murder follows a spate of similar recent killings. They are calling a bluff to government claims that its actions have helped reduce terrorism.
Their concerns deserve deep reflection from the rest of India. Mr Modi and his cabinet colleagues recently threw their political weight behind a film, The Kashmir Files, which documents the sufferings of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s. The movie, which received tax rebates, frames the conflict in Kashmir along religious lines and portrays the exodus and killings of Pandits as evidence of an anti-Hindu slant among previous governments in New Delhi and Srinagar. That narrative is in keeping with the political worldview of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party but falls apart in the face of the recent murders and the government’s insensitive response. Meanwhile, a government-appointed delimitation body has proposed redrawing the Union territory’s constituencies in a manner that should help the BJP. Little wonder then that some Kashmiri Pandits have accused the party of using them as political pawns. At the same time, the unacceptable response of the police will sadly come as no surprise to most Kashmiris who confront a militarised security apparatus every day. The plight of Pandits is not separate from the tragedy of all Kashmiris. Any attempted resolution that fails to recognise that is unlikely to succeed.
Top J&K officials, including Kashmir’s Divisional Commissioner and its Inspector General of Police (IGP), on Tuesday visited several transit camps of Kashmiri Pandits and advised the fear-struck community against migration from the Valley, in the wake of the killing of the Pandit employee, Rahul Bhat, on May 12.
Interacting with protesting Pandits at the Sheikhpora transit camp in Budgam, IGP Vijay Kumar said, “If you (Pandits) fear, this is what Pakistan wants. You will play into the hands of Pakistan and militants, if you fear. They too want you to migrate (from the Valley).”
He assured of additional measures to provide security to the Pandits staying in the Valley and maintained that the militancy was on its last legs.
IGP Kumar, assuring the fear-struck Pandit community, said: “There is a lot of flickering when a candle is about to extinguish. It’s true of militancy too in Kashmir. Within one year, fear will be completely eliminated and the militant numbers will be reduced to below 50.”
He also interacted with Pandits living at the transit camps in south Kashmir’s Kulgam and Anantnag and pacified the protesting Pandits.
During his visit to the Vessu camp in Kulgam, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir P. K. Pole assured to address services-related issues within a
The administration is working on fresh postings for Pandits to the district headquarters following the recent attack, which sparked Valley-wide protests from the fear-stricken community.
“Militants have lost their strength to target big security installations. They are now attacking soft targets, including unarmed policemen who visit homes on leave. These killings are meant to create fear psychosis among the minorities. I can tell you that the security environment in Kashmir is not what it was some 10 years ago,” Mr. Pole said.
Demand for relocation
However, Kashmiri Pandits are not budging on their demands on relocation to safe destinations and dropping of clauses in the Prime Minister Rehabilitation Package that bar employees’ transfer outside the Valley.
“We demand employees should be relocated to the Jammu division till the situation improves in the Valley. The clauses on barring transfers under the Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package should be declared void ab initio,” the protesting Pandits said, both in Sheikhpora and Vessu camps.
In the wake of a spree of killings of Hindus and non-labourers by militants in October and September last year, Pandit employees alleged they were not allowed to leave their stations and were forced to resume duties despite the threat to their lives.
Several Kashmiri Pandit organisations on Friday raised the alarm over the renewed threats against members of the minority community in Kashmir and the recent targeted killings of non-locals and Hindus by suspected militants.
Sanjay Tickoo, who heads the Kashmiri Pandit Sangarash Samiti (KPSS), said the government, in the past three years, has again failed in ensuring the security of minorities living in the Kashmir Valley. “It indicates that Kashmiri minorities will again have to leave Kashmir Valley due to failure of Kashmiri society as well as administration,” Mr. Tickoo said.
Mr. Tickoo, who represents the Pandit families that decided not to migrate in the 1990s, warned that situation in the Kashmir valley was returning to that of three decades earlier. Around 800 Pandit families had stayed on then as militancy broke out in the Valley.
Via social media
The KPSS condemned the latest threat letters and the killing of Kashmiri Pandits and Hindus living in the Valley. “In 1990s, killing lists were circulated in mosques and in 2022 these lists are circulated on the Internet and social media; just the modus operandi has changed but the mentality is the same,” he said.
Mr. Tickoo said some vicious and ill-minded persons, who are using the cover of a particular religion, are hell-bent on the annihilation of the religious minorities living in the Kashmir Valley. “As these kinds of heinous and barbaric acts are not possible without logistic support from the local population and the role of the Kashmiri society, though small in number, cannot be outrightly absolved for the targeted crimes happening against Kashmiri Pandits,” he said.
Dr. Sandeep Mawa, a Srinagar-based Pandit leader, said the Kashmiri Pandits who returned under the Prime Minister’s package have been receiving threats and warning letters from militant organizations.
He urged that Pandit employees should be allowed to work from home till April 24, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Jammu. “There is an apprehension that militants might strike and resort to target killing of Pandits in the wake of PM Modi’s visit,” he added.
