Bitta Karate’s televised confession is evidence in fresh plea filed by Satish Tikoo's family

Bitta Karate, in a shocking confession during a televised interview, had said that Satish Tikoo was the first Kashmiri Pandit he had murdered.

A fresh application has been filed in court by the family of Satish Tikoo who was murdered by terrorist Bitta Karate, seeking to place on record Karate’s shocking confession that Tikoo was the first Kashmiri Pandit he had murdered.

The family will submit the footage of the interview before a Srinagar court tomorrow as evidence. The application, filed by advocate Utsav Bains, will be heard by the court along with the video footage and transcript of the televised confession.

Farooq Ahmed Dar, also known as Bitta Karate, was one of the biggest enforcers of Pakistan’s diktat “raliv, galiv ya chaliv (convert, die or leave). Karate is a free man for years and heads the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) - the outfit which led the targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits.

Bitta Karate, during an interview in 1991, had admitted to killing “over 20” Kashmiri Pandits in 1990, when the community was forced to flee the Valley. Karate had become a dreaded name for the Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley and was dubbed the “Butcher of Pandits”.

Also Read: | From the archives: Kashmiri Pandits, living on the edge

The targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits systematically began in January 1990, soon after then Union Home Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped. This ended with the release of dreaded terrorists. Bitta Karate led the attacks and was the main hitman for the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) until his arrest in June 1990.