Express editorial: Troubling questions about law and order in the Kashmir Valley

The killing of yet another Kashmiri Pandit in Budgam district of Kashmir Valley is a disturbing development, and further evidence that the J&K administration has been unable to prevent such targeted killings. Last month, a Kashmiri Pandit was injured when militants shot at him in Kulgam. Before that, another killing shook a small Rajput community that has been living in south Kashmir for years.


On Thursday, the person targeted was Rahul Bhat, a young revenue department official, who had moved to the Valley under a two-decade old Central employment scheme for Kashmiri Pandits whose families had left during the 1990 exodus. Shockingly, he was shot by his two assailants in the government office where he worked. Last October, after a spate of attacks on Kashmiri Pandits and migrant workers, the J&K police had claimed to have killed the “masterminds” behind the attacks.

However, it has been clear for several years that a policy that focuses on “elimination” of militants alone is not working. Militancy in Kashmir is a revolving door that produces more recruits for each one that is killed in an encounter. That these killings are being carried out by local boys is well known. The police have said there is an increasing presence in the Valley of “foreign” militants — that usually means they are from Pakistan — and that they are pushing young Kashmiris to carry out these killings.


Last month, after more such killings, the police said they would launch night patrols in remote villages where non-migrants lived in order to prevent attacks on soft targets. But how much protection can a stretched police force provide to individuals or groups is the question that Kashmiri Pandits who seek to return to the Valley have been asking….




The Kashmir Files


Bharat Bhushan – Stuffing separatists in jail: A muscular Kashmir policy will fail


Anil Nauriya: Targeting Kashmir’s leaders / Not a Muslim vs the rest issue – the Destruction of a Historic Party-Understanding Kashmir and the National Conference Experience (2002)


Superflous people – review of ‘Our Moon has blood clots’


Kashmir – 16 yrs on, Wandhama victims …


Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti Press Release …


Kashmiri Pandits Stage Protest March in Srinagar


Mansoor Anwar on Comrade Abdul Sattar Ranjoor


P. B. Mehta: What the attacks against minorities in Kashmir reveal


What is to be Undone


Dhrubo Jyoti – 30 years of Pandit exodus: Night of terror that prefaced years of exile


We Fear For the 400 Kashmiri Pandit Families in South Kashmir: Sanjay Tickoo


When a Hindu is killed in Kashmir, all Kashmiri Muslims must condemn it, just as all Hindus must condemn lynching of Muslims anywhere in India – Sanjay Tickoo


Rashmi Singh – Migrant Workers in the Kashmir Valley


Quratulain Rehbar: A Year On, Kashmiri Man’s Family Despairs His Continued Incarceration Under PSA


Communist Party of India Report (1950) – Imperialist aggression in Kashmir


High Court of Jammu & Kashmir upholds Sanjay Tickoo’s petition for protection of religious places and castigates communal versions of nationalism