Letters threatening Kashmiri Pandits that surfaced on social media in August have set off a wave of panic amongst members of the neighborhood residing in Jammu and Kashmir (J&Okay). They’ve revived reminiscences of the “hit lists” and assassinations that pressured round 350,000 Pandits to flee the Kashmir valley over 36 years in the past.
Three letters, all issued within the title of the United Liberation Council (ULC), mentioned to be a entrance group of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, have surfaced on social media thus far. The newest letter, dated August 27, was explicitly linked to the Indian authorities reopening investigations into the bloodbath of Pandits by Islamist militants on the peak of the anti-India militancy within the Nineteen Nineties.
“If the SIA [State Investigation Agency of J&K] or every other company is so wanting to reopen closed instances involving migrant Pandits, they need to additionally examine instances like Bijebehara, Gawkadal, Sopore, Handwara, and so forth., the place the so-called Indian mercenary safety forces intentionally opened fireplace on harmless Kashmiris,” the letter mentioned. “We’ll slaughter all these concerned in these crimes regardless of how a lot safety they’ve.”
The primary letter, dated August 7, named six Pandits working within the J&Okay authorities’s income division and included their mobile phone numbers. It referred to as on them to “change their methods.” The second letter, dated August 23, named six extra Pandits and supplied their residential addresses, together with home numbers and avenue names. It described them as “white collar terrorists” and “traitors,” working for his or her “masters” in Delhi.
The letter’s contents had been ominous. “Wherever you might be and wherever you go, we’re watching your each transfer,” it mentioned. Whereas the August 7 letter named Pandits working within the valley, the August 23 put up listed Pandits in Jammu.
Kashmiri Pandits are Hindus and indigenous to the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. Initially of the militancy in 1989-1990, a number of Pandits, together with Tika Lal Taploo, Neelkanth Ganjoo, Sarwanand Koul Premi and Virender Koul had been assassinated. Sarla Bhat, a nurse, was kidnapped, raped and killed. Though militants claimed they had been killed for his or her hyperlinks to the Indian state – Taploo was a politician and Ganjoo was a excessive courtroom decide—amid the rising tide of Islamism in Kashmir, it brought on immense worry among the many Pandits.
In an article I wrote for The Diplomat in 2020, I recounted what Ashok Dhar, a Pandit beforehand residing in Baramulla within the valley, instructed me about what occurred in 1989-90. “It was evident that Kashmiri Muslims wished us to depart the Valley,” he recalled. Militant teams just like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Entrance and the Hizbul Mujahideen introduced out “hit lists” with names of Pandits to be eradicated. Individuals shouted anti-Pandit slogans in mosques and at rallies. “They wished sharia rule in Kashmir,” Dhar mentioned, including that Pandits got a option to convert to Islam or go away the valley.
Round 70,000 Pandit households comprising over 350,000 girls, males, and youngsters fled the valley in 1990. Dhar and his household had been amongst them.
A lot of the Pandits who left the Kashmir valley had been subsequently housed in migrant camps in Jammu and Delhi. Many settled in different Indian cities. Most of them have by no means returned dwelling. A couple of hundred households remained within the valley.
In its letters, the JLC has distinguished between those that remained within the valley and people who left. It’s the latter that it’s focusing on now, the letters say.
Whereas for many half, Pandits within the valley had been left unhurt over the many years, Islamist militants have focused the neighborhood periodically. The Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Hizbul Mujahideen massacred 23 Pandits, together with 4 youngsters, at Wandhama in 1997 and one other 24 Pandits, together with two youngsters, at Nadimarg in 2003.
Reminiscences of the phobia they skilled stay deeply etched within the reminiscence of Pandits.
Quickly after the second letter emerged, Dhar, who now lives in Bengaluru, spoke to The Diplomat. The JLC’s lists offering names and different figuring out particulars of Pandits “aren’t any completely different from the hit lists of 1990,” he mentioned.
Since 2008, when former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh introduced a rehabilitation bundle, New Delhi has promised authorities jobs, money doles, lodging and safety to Pandits returning to the valley. But this has not been sufficient to persuade them to return in massive numbers.
Persevering with assaults on Pandits within the valley – in October 2021, for instance, a pharmacist who stayed again in Srinagar, J&Okay’s capital, in 1990, was shot lifeless – have stored the neighborhood on tenterhooks. The federal government might have supplied returning Pandits with tight safety however since they stay in clusters, they worry they’re sitting geese for Islamist militants.
In latest months, New Delhi has reopened investigations into a number of high-profile murders and massacres by militant teams in Kashmir. Among the many instances which were reopened are the rape and homicide of Sarla Bhat, and the bloodbath at Wandhama.
These investigations may serve to fulfill the calls for of Kashmiri Pandit organizations which were demanding justice. But in addition, they may reopen previous wounds.
In the meantime, that is positive to immediate Kashmiri Muslims to demand justice in incidents of mass killings by the Indian safety forces. The ULC referred to this in its third letter. “It seems to be positioning itself as a guardian of Kashmiri Muslim pursuits. However Kashmiris, “even the Muslims, are unlikely to be impressed as they’ve suffered for many years, even because the militant teams operated from the security of camps in Pakistan,” Dhar mentioned.
When two non-Kashmiri Indian laborers working at a brick kiln in Kulgam district within the valley had been shot lifeless on July 31, analysts identified that militants had been hitting “mushy targets” as they weren’t robust sufficient to tackle India’s safety forces. The focusing on of Pandit civilians is one more instance of militants searching for to say their presence by intimidating unarmed folks.
Ought to the letters immediate Pandits to depart once more, it is going to deal a blow to New Delhi’s efforts to normalize the scenario in J&Okay.
