Bullets and tears

Pandits are fleeing Kashmir once again. The community is being targeted by militants who fear that the BJP has plans to alter J&K’s demography

- TARIQ BHAT

KASHMIRI PANDITS FLED to different parts of India after the community was targeted by militants in the late 1980s. According to official data, 64,827 Pandit families left Kashmir back then. In 2008, the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government announced the prime minister’s package (PMP), offering 6,000 jobs, in an attempt to bring the families back. The project was working well until the revocation of Article 370 in August 2019. Soon, militants started targeting non-natives and minorities.

Last October, prominent Pandit businessman M.L. Bindroo, who never left Kashmir, was shot dead. Supinder Kour, principal of a government school in Srinagar, and her colleague Deepak Chand Mehra were killed a few days later. Kashmiri Pandits have been living in fear since then.

The fear turned into panic after Rahul Bhat, 35, a Pandit employed under PMP, was shot dead on May 12 at the Chadoora tehsil office in Budgam district. It triggered protests by Kashmiri Pandits, mostly government employees, in Budgam, Qazigund, Pulwama, Ganderbal and Baramulla. They blocked roads and threatened to leave Kashmir, unless the government relocated them.

Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and Kashmir Divisional Commissioner Pandurang K. Pole met the protesters, and promised them security and postings in safe zones. On the heels of the assurances, Kulgam district saw two killings—on May 31, government school teacher Rajni Bala, and on June 2, bank manager Vijay Kumar. The police subsequently tried to seal migrant camps to prevent Pandits from fleeing.