The return of minority Hindus back to Kashmir, two decades after an exodus in the face of attacks and threats by militias, has been seen by the Indian government as an illustration of how They are bringing normalcy to the resilient Himalayan region.
But Kashmiri Hindus say their lives have become normal after a growing series of targeted killings – and that they desperately want to get out, but again.
According to them, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is preventing thousands of Hindus from fleeing their residential colonies of Kashmir. Hindu residents are demanding that the authorities lift lockdowns and let them leave after three murders this week: a teacher was shot dead outside her school, a bank manager was shot in his desk and, on Thursday night, a laborer was killed while working at a brick kiln.
“Our request is to move us to any place other than Kashmir, any part of India,” said TN Pandita, a father of two who works as a clerk at a local court in Baramulla district. , said.
“This morning, we tried to get out, but we were forbidden to leave,” Mr Pandita said on Thursday. “Our camp was locked down, and the central police force was deployed outside.”
Mr. Modi’s government has been invested in projecting the Muslim-majority region as a stable, integrated part of India following the dissolution of the region’s elected government and revocation of its status. semi-autonomous Kashmir in 2019. bring it under direct rule of New Delhi.
Stripping the region of its special status has long been a goal of India’s Hindu nationalists. According to the following direct rule, a restraint has increasingly silenced dissenting voices.
Kashmir has been disputed by India and Pakistan since British rule ended in 1947. In the late 1980s, a Kashmiri separatist movement, supported and trained in Pakistan, increased its targeting. on the Hindus of the region, known as the Pandits. A mass exodus of tens of thousands of Hindu families – perhaps 300,000 in total – followed. Only a few hundred Hindu families remain.
Over a decade ago, as the security situation in the valley improved under India’s dense military presence, the government encourage Hindus in Kashmiri to return by providing them with incentives that include government employment and payment to buy or rebuild a house. Thousands of Hindus accepted the offer, taking up residence in half a dozen residential Kashmir colonies known as transit camps.
But Hindu Kashmiri organizations and local residents say there was a new wave of targeted killing over the past two years, a clear retaliation for Mr. Modi’s decision to revoke the region’s semi-autonomous status. Mr. Modi also tried to ease requirements on Hindus for local employment and property purchases, which militants and others see as an attempt to reshape the demographic. of the area.
About 200 families living outside the camps, or trying to get out of them, have left the valley in the past three days, local Hindu leaders said.
“We used to get all the support from the locals. But suddenly, from the past two and a half years, the scenario has completely changed,” said Ankaj Tickoo, a 31-year-old engineer who works at the electrical department in Srinagar district.
“What happened to my parents in the 1990s,” he added, “the same thing is happening to us now.”
Sandeep Raina, 38, who works in Anantnag district for the same agency, said he received calls from officials in charge of four police stations preventing him from visiting sites in their area.
“We have not been to the office since Rahul Bhatt was killed – that was 21 days ago, and since then many more murders have happened,” he said, referring to a civil servant who was shot in the office. his room. “I worry about my family’s safety. I cannot send my child to school. ”
In a letter to India’s chief justice on Wednesday, Sangarsh Simiti, a Kashmiri Pandit organization, accused the government of “playing with the lives of religious minorities in the Kashmir Valley” and asked the Supreme Court high intervention.
The organization says there have been more than a dozen recorded targeted attacks, some fatal, against Hindus since 2020, with many more targeting Muslims. considered pro-government. It also details how authorities are currently preventing Kashmiri Hindus from relocating to safer areas.
“The government has blocked roads, using electricity to fence the walls of the transit camps, the main doors of the transit camps are closed from the outside with a lock,” the organization said in a letter to the agency. court.
Video posted by Hindu residents from Mattan camp, in Anantnag district, shows the tense situation during a protest, where local officials urged residents to stay. Officials say they will strengthen security measures and people can work closer to home.
Kashmiri Hindus told local officials it was too late for such measures. Some of them chanted, “What do we want? A right to life! ” and “The only solution – resettlement! Resettlement!”
Ranjan Jotshi, 48, a protest leader who works at the local social welfare department, said he was part of a delegation that visited the region’s governor for a meeting and that the police chief had told the attendees that it will take three years to eliminate the area of remaining warriors.
Hours after a meeting with local officials in the Mattan camp, as panic grew about the murder of the bank’s director, security forces blocked the exit of the camp by means of means to prevent families from entering the camp. leave.
“Don’t force the Kashmiri Pandits to hit you with rocks,” Mr Jotshi is seen in a video telling police, referring to an act that local Kashmiri Muslim youth sometimes use against security forces. regional heaviness.
“We want to leave at any cost,” Mr. Jotshi said. “We don’t want to die here.”
