U nion Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday held a highlevel meeting to review the worsening security situation in Kashmir, amid demands from Kashmiri Pandits and other minority community members to move them out of the Valley to safer places. The meeting came in the wake of recent spate of targeted killings of minority community members and migrants by Pak-supported terrorists operating in Kashmir. According to the Central government’s own admission in the Rajya Sabha in April, 87 civilians and 99 security personnel have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. As many as 17 civilians have been killed in the past five months in Kashmir, news reports say. There have been seven targeted killings by terrorist in May alone. A bank manager was killed by terrorist on Thursday in Kulgam. Two days earlier on May 31, Rajni Bala, a school teacher, in Kulgam fell victim to targeted killing, barely a week after Ambreen Bhat, a TV artiste, was shot dead outside her home in Budgam on May 25. Before that Rahul Bhatt, an employee of the Tehsil office in Budgam district’s Chadoora, was shot dead by terrorists on May 12. All these targeted killings by terrorists have led to an atmosphere of fear especially among those Kashmiri migrants who have been given employment and have been housed in camps in the Valley under the PM rehabilitation package. The Rs 1600 crore rehabilitation package that was put in works by the Congress-led UPA government in 2008 has left many things to be desired by the present dispensation, sources say. Finding themselves at the receiving end of these targeted killings and government failure to provide them security has led widespread protests by minority community across Jammu and Kashmir, demanding relocation to safer places, even as 50 families have left Kashmir for Jammu in the past two days. The Daily Guardian Review spoke to some such families in Jammu. “I would only request the (J&K) administration to transfer our kids serving in Kashmir to Jammu which is the only safe place nowadays,” said Shilaji Bhatt, whose family has shifted to Jammu. Among those who have migrated to Jammu is Payal Devi’s family. Payal was a friend of Rajni Bala, who like her friend has been serving as a teacher in Kulgam district for the past 14 years. The teacher is so shocked at her friend’s killing that she does not want to go back to Kashmir. “I don’t want to die like her I am worried about my kids as they live with me and that’s why will not go back to U nion Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday held a highlevel meeting to review the worsening security situation in Kashmir, amid demands from Kashmiri Pandits and other minority community members to move them out of the Valley to safer places. The meeting came in the wake of recent spate of targeted killings of minority community members and migrants by Pak-supported terrorists operating in Kashmir. According to the Central government’s own admission in the Rajya Sabha in April, 87 civilians and 99 security personnel have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. As many as 17 civilians have been killed in the past five months in Kashmir, news reports say. There have been seven targeted killings by terrorist in May alone. A bank manager was killed by terrorist on Thursday in Kulgam. Two days earlier on May 31, Rajni Bala, a school teacher, in Kulgam fell victim to targeted killing, barely a week after Ambreen Bhat, a TV artiste, was shot dead outside her home in Budgam on May 25. Before that Rahul Bhatt, an employee of the Tehsil office in Budgam district’s Chadoora, was shot dead by terrorists on May 12. All these targeted killings by terrorists have led to an atmosphere of fear especially among those Kashmiri migrants who have been given employment and have been housed in camps in the Valley under the PM rehabilitation package. The Rs 1600 crore rehabilitation package that was put in works by the Congress-led UPA government in 2008 has left many things to be desired by the present dispensation, sources say. Finding themselves at the receiving end of these targeted killings and government failure to provide them security has led widespread protests by minority community across Jammu and Kashmir, demanding relocation to safer places, even as 50 families have left Kashmir for Jammu in the past two days. The Daily Guardian Review spoke to some such families in Jammu. “I would only request the (J&K) administration to transfer our kids serving in Kashmir to Jammu which is the only safe place nowadays,” said Shilaji Bhatt, whose family has shifted to Jammu. Among those who have migrated to Jammu is Payal Devi’s family. Payal was a friend of Rajni Bala, who like her friend has been serving as a teacher in Kulgam district for the past 14 years. The teacher is so shocked at her friend’s killing that she does not want to go back to Kashmir. “I don’t want to die like her I am worried about my kids as they live with me and that’s why will not go back to
Kashmir as it is not safe at all.”
The targeted killings of minority community in Kashmir and government’s failure to protect them have come in for sharp criticism by opposition leaders. Shiv Sena RS MP Priyanka Chaturvedi on Friday wrote a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, criticizing the government failure to take any ‘effective measures’. In her letter, Chaturvedi has referred to the targeted killings of Hindus and migrants in the Valley in recent days. “All these incidents have created a sense of fear, vulnerability and insecurity among the Hindu community, especially Kashmiri Pandits and migrants living in the valley,” she said in the letter.
Her party colleague Sanjay Raut slammed the BJP for garnering votes in the name of ‘Hindutva’ but doing nothing to improve people’s lot in the Valley.
AICC J&K in charge Rajni Patil, on the other hand, said that the present situation has become so alarming that it reminds her of 1990. There is no stopping to daily killings and no peaceful atmosphere as being claimed by the government. Everyone in Kashmir is risking their life. “I am from Maharashtra and getting many calls to return back; they feel that something bad will happen,” she said.
The Congress leader demanded that those feeling unsafe in Kashmir be moved to safer places and the families of those killed are given compensation.
According to the sources in the Intelligence Bureau, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan has directed terrorists operating in the Valley to change their tactics and target minorities, non-Kashmiri migrants, off-duty police personnel, panchayat members and pro-India elements, who are soft targets.