Kashmiri Pandit groups raise concerns over targeted attacks

Threat letters circulated to residents ahead of PM’s visit next week

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.  

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.

He alleged that every gunman, known or unknown, is a local person and the over ground workers helping them are also from Kashmiri society who create fake trust with religious minorities to collect details and help these gunmen kill Kashmiri Pandits and Hindus living in Kashmir Valley. 

Satish Mahaldar, chairman of the J&K Peace Forum, said in the past two days the threatening letter has been issued to Kashmiri pandits specifically by the Lashker-e-Islam. “These threatening letters have been addressed to residents of the migrants camp in Hawal and Baramulla,” he said.