In 3 Decades 89 Kashmiri Pundits Killed – RTI

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J&K Sensitive State

The Kashmiri Pandits are also known as Kashmiri Brahmins or Saraswat Brahmin are a community from the Kashmir Valley.
It is said that, Kashmiri Pandits are the original inhabitants of the Kashmir Valley and are the only remaining Kashmiri Hindu community native to Kashmir. They are divided mainly into subcategories – Banmasi & Malmasi.
Population: In the 1981 census, the Kashmir Division had 124,078 Hindus, the majority of whom were Pandits.

1953 : Sheikh Abdullah deposed
1964 : Sheikh Abdullah returns
1965-68 : Sheikh Abdullah interned again
1971: Indo-Pak War – Liberation of Bangladesh
1974: Indira-Sheikh Accord. Sheikh Abdullah left the demand of Plebiscite. Those opposed to it included Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir, People’s League in Indian Jammu and Kashmir and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
1974-82: Sheikh Abdullah remains CM

Sheikh Abdullah died in 1982, and the leadership of the National Conference passed on to his son Farooq Abdullah, who won the 1983 election.
1984 saw a pronounced rise in terrorist violence in Kashmir. When the JKLF militant Maqbool Bhat was executed in February 1984.
Pro Azad Kashmiri outfits criticized the then Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah and alleged that Abdullah was losing control.
In July 1984, G. M. Shah, who had support from Indira Gandhi, replaced his brother-in-law Farooq Abdullah and became the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, after Abdullah was dismissed, in what was termed as a political “coup”.

1986: Rajiv Gandhi government opened the Babri Masjid locks.
1987: Muslim United Front loses election and alleges that 1987 elections were rigged to bring NC and INC to fore front in Kashmir.
1988: Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) began a separatist insurgency for secession of Kashmir from India.
In Anantnag, there was a series of attacks on Hindu temples, and shops and properties of Kashmiri Pandits, blamed on separatist and secessionists.

On 14 September 1989, Tika Lal Taploo, who was a lawyer and a BJP member, was murdered by the JKLF in his home in Srinagar.
Later, in November 1989, Nilkanth Ganjoo, a judge of Srinagar High court who had sentenced Maqbul Bhat to death, was shot dead.
In December 1989, members of JKLF kidnapped Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the-then Union Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed demanding release of five militants, which was subsequently fulfilled.
In January 1990, Srinagar-based newspaper Aftab released a message, threatening all Hindus to leave Kashmir immediately, sourcing it to the militant organization Hizbul Mujahideen.

By this time Pandits had begun to be targeted. Eminent persons of the community were being shot dead.
Matters came to a head on January 19 1990. The Farooq Abdullah government had been dismissed and Governor Jagmohan’s rule was imposed. According to accounts published by many eminent Kashmiri Pandits, there were threatening slogans over loudspeakers from mosques, and on the streets. Speeches were made extolling Pakistan and the supremacy of Islam, and against Hinduism.
Shops, factories, temples and homes of Kashmiri Hindus were burned or destroyed. Threatening posters were posted on doors of Hindus asking them to leave Kashmir immediately. During the middle of the night of 18 and 19 January, a blackout took place in the Kashmir Valley where electricity was cut except in mosques. Finally, the Kashmiri Pandit community decided to leave.

On January 20 1990, the first stream of Pandits began leaving the Valley with hastily packed belongings in whatever transport they could find.
On January 21, the CRPF gunned down 160 Kashmiri Muslim protesters at the Gawkadal Bridge, which has come to be known as the worst massacre in the long history of the conflict in Kashmir.
Later a second, larger wave left in March and April 1990, after more Pandits were killed.

According to estimates, by the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), of 75,343 Kashmiri Pandit families in January 1990, more than 70,000 fled between 1990 and 1992 and continued until 2000.
The KPSS has placed the number of Kashmiri Pandits killed by militants from 1990 to 2011 at 399, the majority during 1989-90.
By 2011, only an estimated 2,700-3,400 Pandits remained in the Kashmir Valley.

In response to a query raised by RTI
- “Apart from the 89 Kashmiri Pandits, 1,635 people of other faiths were also killed during the same period (1990-2020).”
- Financial help being provided by the Centre and state government to migrant Kashmiri Pandits
  - Amount of Rs 3,250 is being paid as assistance per month to every registered Kashmiri migrant besides ration comprising 9kg rice, 2kg atta and 1kg sugar.
- 54 lakh people, including Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs had left the Valley since the inception of militancy. Of these, according to the official record, 53,958 Hindus, 11,212 Muslims, 5,013 Sikhs were availing help from the government as per the relief policy while 81,448 Hindus, 949 Muslims and 1,542 Sikhs were not availing the relief.

The Centre had told Parliament that nearly 3,800 Kashmiri migrants have returned to Kashmir since the 1990s and 520 have returned since the abrogation of Article 370 to take up jobs under the Prime Minister’s package.
The government has also stated that it is expecting 2,000 more migrants will return this year due to adding special jobs for the Kashmiri migrant youth under the PM package.
However, recently, a parliamentary standing committee has expressed dissatisfaction at the pace of construction of transit accommodation for Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, noting that only 15% of the work has been completed till date.