Targeted Killing of Hindu Civilians Triggers Panic in Kashmir

The killing of seven civilians, four of them non-Muslims, in the overwhelmingly Muslim Kashmir Valley over a span of five days in early October has set off alarms in New Delhi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has been struggling to usher in a semblance of normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir, especially after stripping the former state of its autonomy in August 2019. The surge in attacks on civilians, especially on religious minorities, could upset the Modi government’s plans.

On October 5, Makan Lal Bindroo, a well-known Kashmiri Pandit pharmacist, was shot dead in Srinagar. A few hours later, Virendra Paswana, a street food vendor from India’s eastern state of Bihar, was gunned down in another part of the city. Shortly afterward, a cab driver, Mohammed Shafi Lone, was killed in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district. Two teachers, Deepak Chand and Satinder Kour, were shot dead in a government school in Srinagar two days later. Then on October 9, Majid Ahmad Gojri and Mohammad Shafi Dar were shot dead in Srinagar.

Of the seven, three were local Kashmiri Muslims; the rest were either Hindu or Sikh. All were unarmed civilians.

So far this year, 28 civilians – five belonging to the local Hindu/Sikh community and two non-local Hindus – have been killed in terrorism-related incidents, Kashmir’s Inspector General of Police, Vijay Kumar said in a statement.

While the number of civilian killings has been falling since 2017, this is the first time in six years that the number of civilians killed exceeds that of security forces.

The Resistance Force (TRF), an outfit that emerged in September 2019 in the wake of India’s revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, has claimed responsibility for the recent civilian killings. Said to be a front organization of the Pakistan-backed and based Lashkar-e-Taiba, the TRF has denied that the recent killings had anything to do with the religious identity of the victims.

Bindroo was killed because he was an “RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] stooge,” the TRF said in a statement, accusing him of organizing “seminars and secret meetings involving Kashmiris, especially youth, in the name of health activities.” The RSS is the ideological fount of the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar, a “family” of outfits of which the BJP is a part.

Chand and Kour had “harassed and warned the parents [of the school children] with dire consequences” if they did not attend the event marking Indian Independence Day on August 15, the TRF said.

It has warned that “domicile holders, stooges, and collaborators,” regardless of their religion, are “enemies of the Kashmir struggle and will not be spared.”

Understandably, Hindus and Sikhs in the valley are frightened and a small but steady number are fleeing the region.

This has evoked memories of the 1989-90 period when a spate of targeted killings of Pandits – Kashmiri-speaking Hindus – triggered an exodus of around 70,000 Pandit families. Over 350,000 women, men, and children fled the valley at the time.

Just around 800 Pandit families remained in the valley through the worst of the anti-India militancy in the 1990s, braving several massacres targeting members of the community in Sangrampora (1997), Wandhama (1998), and Nadimarg (2003).

Bindroo and his family were among them.

The Pandit exodus from the valley is controversial and continues to evoke angry responses. Kashmiri Muslims accuse the Pandits of fleeing the valley, leaving them to suffer the violence of the militants and the Indian security forces.

While Kashmiri Muslims did bear the brunt of the militancy, life for the Pandit migrants has not been easy either; thousands live in tented accommodation in camps in Jammu and Delhi.

Successive governments in New Delhi and Srinagar have attempted to draw the Pandits back to the valley by promising them financial support and jobs. Chand, the teacher, had returned to the valley in 2018 as part of one such scheme.

The government promised the Pandits security too. They were provided accommodation in houses secured by police and surrounded by high walls and concertina wire.

Many opposed these Pandit-only settlements, arguing that it would make them more vulnerable to attacks by Islamist militants. Besides, what security could the government provide when they left their homes to work in cities?

Their arguments were proved right by the TRF’s recent attacks. Bindroo was at his shop selling medicines to the public in a busy part of Srinagar when he was killed. Chand and Kaur were at school when they were singled out and gunned down.

The government’s plans to get the Pandits to return to the valley has run aground.

Kashmiri Muslims have come out to protest against the targeting of the religious minorities. In mosques, clerics have appealed to Muslims to stand by the Hindus.

Will their assurances convince the minorities to remain in the valley?