Migration of Kashmiri Pandits belies BJP government's normalcy claims

The series of targeted attacks, forcing hundreds of members of minority community to flee Kashmir, has dented the BJP government’s often repeated normalcy narrative that situation has improved after the revocation of special status of the erstwhile state under Article 370 in August 2019.

The unabated targeted attacks on Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) and non-locals in recent months have sent shockwaves throughout the troubled region’s minority community, who in panic are moving out of the Valley.

Just in May, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that Jammu and Kashmir was fast returning to normalcy as the decades-long terrorism was on its last legs. Srinagar was declared ‘terror-free’ by police in August 2020, but now there has been a swell in terror ranks, with missing local youth from the Valley posing a major security challenge.

But since December 2020, at least 18 members from the minority communities have been killed in targeted attacks by militants in Kashmir. These include five displaced Kashmiri Pandits, two Sikhs, including chairman of Block Development Council Khag (Budgam), Bhupinder Singh, and the government schoolteacher Supinder Kaur.

Some of the victims were non-local workers from UP and Bihar. Three were resident Hindus and two Dogra Hindus from Jammu recruited as teachers from the Scheduled Castes and one Hindu bank manager from Rajasthan.

Also Read: Bank manager killed in Kashmir got married in February, wanted to go back to Rajasthan

However, it is not only the non-Muslim civilians who are being targeted by the militants. Since August 2019, when the Centre abrogated Article 370, 90 Kashmiri Muslims have also been killed by the militants.

What is worrisome is that the latest attacks are being reported at a time when security in the Valley is already on high alert as annual Amarnath ji yatra is commencing from June 30. This year a record six to eight lakh pilgrims are expected to have darshan at the 3,880-metre-high holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

Last month a threat letter, purportedly issued by The Resistance Front (TRF) militant organisation, warned to attack those Amarnath pilgrims, who they said would be used for demographic and political gains by the BJP government.

The spate of targeted killings has sent alarm bells ringing with security forces blaming that the attacks were carried out by ‘hybrid’ or part-time militants - who are not on any terror lists but are radicalised enough to carry out a strike and then slip back into routine life.

Sources said that militant handlers across the border were ensuring that weapons, mostly pistols and sticky bombs, reach the hands of these ‘hybrid’ militants. “Pakistan had been sending consignments of pistols in the recent months from across the International Border using drones. Although several consignments have been seized, many have made it into the hands of hybrid terrorists, who are now unleashing terror,” they said.

National Conference (NC) president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah said that this "ostrich approach" (of the government) will push the situation to a point of no return.

“The killing spree and the pervasive fear among civilians, minorities and other soft targets gives a lie to the claims of the government that everything was 'okay' in Kashmir,” he said.