A group named Kashmir Freedom Fighters (KFF) claimed responsibility for the Monday evening attack in Shopian’s Choutigam area in which a Kashmiri Pandit identified as Bal Krishan Bhatt was seriously injured. Bhatt is said to be “in a critical condition”. The attack on him on Monday, April 4, was the first on Kashmiri Pandits this year.
It was in October 2021, that militants had shot dead a well known businessman, Makan Lal Bindroo at his shop in the high-security zone of the Iqbal Park area of Srinagar. In another attack later, school principal Deepak Chand and a female teacher Supinder (Satinder) Kour were killed in Safa Kadal area of Srinagar.
“This is what we feared,” Sanjay Tickoo, President of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, a group that upholds and defends the rights of non-migrant Kashmiri Pandit families, had told SabrangIndia over the phone following the Choutigam attack. He had raised safety concerns in wake of the release of the movie The Kashmir Files and said this violence was “the outcome of this movie, I have said it before. I also said we don’t know how many poor people will be killed in the future.” Tickoo was anguished at the latest attack on a member of the community. The man, popularly known as Sonu, “was shot at, three times,” according to Tickoo.
Now a KFF spokesman put out a statement that soon circulated on social media claiming, “The cadre of KFF shot and critically injured Kashmiri Pandit. He was hand in glove with the BJP and was also involved in many immoral activities” and ominously signed off with “more to come” the unverified image of this ‘letter’ is being circulated on social media since yesterday.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has reportedly told security forces operating in Jammu and Kashmir to intensify counter insurgency measures. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Jammu on April 24. This is his first visit since the state was downgraded to two Union Territories.
According to a report in NDTV, the J&K Police have said that the KFF is one of the “fringe groups of Lashka”. The report stated that a senior official in the MHA corroborated this. According to the NDTV news report, an anonymous senior official operating in the Valley said, “Ramazan is the time when terrorists regroup and intensify attacks as they feel that security agencies will go slow in their operations and these attacks are case in point.” He added that such “attacks are being orchestrated by Pakistan” and that “they (ISI) want to create an atmosphere that the government is not in control and can’t protect minorities.” A CRPF jawan was killed and four civilians injured, including two migrant workers from Bihar, in two attacks in Kashmir on Sunday and Monday.
This has sent the alarm bells ringing, as reported by NDTV this is also a time when “migrant labour returns to Kashmir Valley”. According to MHA statistics quoted in the report, soon “after attacks in October 2021 about 27,000 migrants and 400 Kashmiri Pandits left the valley.”
Related:
This is what we feared: Sanjay Tickoo on the rising attacks in Kashmir since March
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The Kashmir Files making resident Kashmiri Pandits feel unsafe
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J&K: More migrant workers shot dead by terrorists over the weekend, all eyes on Centre
Friday Sermons Urge Protection for Kashmiri Pandits/Sikhs in kashmir Valley
Srinagar: Grief envelopes Valley as Supinder (Satinder) Kour’s last rites are performed
Govt to Blame, where is the security for KP families in the Valley, asks Sanjay Tickoo, KPSS