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.
Over the last nearly three years, the administration has silenced anti-government dissent in the Valley to such an extent by sheer diktat that it was clearly blindsided when a large number of Pandits, who like Bhat, are employed by the government in the Valley and live in “transit camps” in various districts, came out to protest the administration’s failure to protect members of the community. The J&K administration seems not to know that policing of such protests, routine in other states, does not require tear gassing or a baton charge. It should also be putting the lid on activities that seem to emphasise the divide between Muslims and Hindus. The environment in the Valley is fraught, and the administration must not add to it, even if it can do nothing to provide a healing touch to those affected by the violence.
