The circulation of a fresh threat communication naming Kashmiri Pandit employees in the Valley has revived deeply familiar fears within a community that has experienced intimidation, displacement and violence in the past. In a press release dated August 25, 2026, the Kashmiri Pandit Sangarash Samiti (KPSS), an organisation primarily representing the concerns of Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Hindus who remained in the Valley, said the latest threat cannot be dismissed as simply another piece of online content.
According to KPSS, a communication dated August 23 and attributed to an outfit calling itself the United Liberation Council (ULC) has surfaced on social media. The communication reportedly carries the names and personal details of Kashmiri Pandit employees. The organisation says security agencies are examining its authenticity and origin, while reports have described the ULC as a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked proxy. KPSS stresses that irrespective of the eventual findings of the investigation, the circulation of a communication containing identifiable personal information is serious enough to warrant an immediate, transparent and credible security response.
The distinction is important. The press release does not present the authenticity of the threat as an established fact; rather, it calls for the authorities to investigate precisely that question. What KPSS argues is that the potential danger cannot be measured merely by whether the communication is ultimately proven genuine. The very fact that personal details of individuals are allegedly being circulated in a threatening context raises questions about how the information was obtained, who prepared and disseminated the material, and whether any local network or facilitation was involved.
SabrangIndia’s detailed reports featuring conversations with Sanjay Tickoo, president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, on the two threatening letters can be read here, here and here.
A new medium for an old language of fear
For KPSS, the significance of the episode lies not only in the contents of the alleged threat but in the history it evokes. The organisation draws a direct parallel with the forms of intimidation experienced by Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s. Threats that once travelled through walls, posters, mosque loudspeakers and whispered warnings can now circulate through social media, digital platforms and encrypted channels. The technology may have changed, but, KPSS argues, the psychological objective remains disturbingly familiar: creating the perception that a Kashmiri Pandit’s birthplace is conditional, his property negotiable, his presence temporary and his safety dependent upon the permission of others.
That history makes the present threat particularly significant for those who have attempted to return to or continue living in the Valley. KPSS argues that a Kashmiri Pandit does not become an outsider because extraordinary circumstances forced him or her to leave an ancestral home. Nor does the passage of decades erase ancestral belonging. The organisation frames the right to remember one’s home, return to it and live there without fear as questions of belonging and security rather than matters for which the community should have to seek permission or sympathy.
‘Brotherhood’ cannot replace protection
The press release also takes issue with recent remarks attributed to BJP General Secretary (Organisation), J&K, Ashok Koul, reportedly made at Tirth Raj Kapal Mochan Nagbal in Shopian while speaking about the return of Kashmiri Pandits and the need for social cohesion. According to KPSS, Koul was reported as saying that “targeted killings won’t stop” while emphasising the need to build brotherhood. KPSS says the statement should not be sensationalised or selectively interpreted, but argues that it nevertheless raises an unavoidable question: what does security mean for a community being encouraged to return if targeted violence is presented as something that may continue?
The organisation’s objection is not to the idea of brotherhood itself. It explicitly recognises social harmony as indispensable. Its argument is that social harmony cannot be treated as a substitute for institutional protection. “Brotherhood” without security, KPSS contends, risks becoming an appeal made to those who are already vulnerable while leaving the structural conditions of that vulnerability untouched. Protection requires functioning security mechanisms, intelligence, accountability and preventive action—not simply assurances following an incident.
The question is therefore not whether Kashmiri Pandits should have faith in their neighbours or in Kashmir’s pluralistic traditions. It is whether institutions can guarantee that such faith does not require them to accept an unacceptable level of risk.
The burden of return
KPSS also highlights what it sees as a contradiction in the political and social discourse surrounding the return of Kashmiri Pandits. The community’s return has frequently been described as essential to restoring Kashmir’s pluralistic character. Yet, the organisation argues, returning Pandits are repeatedly asked to adjust to the prevailing situation; concerns over security are met with assurances that conditions are improving; questions over ancestral property are directed towards the future; and when threats emerge again, those same individuals are expected to display patience and faith.
This leads to the central question posed by the press release: How many times must the victim prove his commitment to Kashmir before Kashmir proves its commitment to him?
For KPSS, the answer cannot be another appeal to resilience. Returning home should not require extraordinary courage. It should be an ordinary exercise of citizenship.
Avoiding collective blame—but not collective denial
The press release is also careful to distinguish between militant violence and the wider Kashmiri population. KPSS states that the majority community should not be collectively held responsible for crimes committed by militants, and that the actions of a few should not be indiscriminately attributed to an entire society. At the same time, however, it argues that society must be willing to examine the environment in which intimidation can emerge, personal information can circulate and threats can again be directed at a vulnerable minority.
This distinction is central to the organisation’s argument. Rejecting collective blame, it suggests, cannot mean refusing to examine the social and institutional conditions that allow threats to emerge or circulate.
The real test of security, KPSS argues, is not the response after violence has occurred but whether warning signs are recognised before they become violence. A society’s commitment to its minority communities cannot be measured only by the solidarity expressed after a killing; it must also be measured by whether people can live, work, worship, own property and return to their homes without having to first become victims for their humanity to be acknowledged.
What investigators must establish
The organisation’s most concrete demand is for scrutiny of the threat itself. Rather than reducing the episode to the question of whether a poster or digital communication is authentic, KPSS asks authorities to establish who prepared it, who circulated it, how the personal details were obtained, whether it represents a genuine operational threat, and whether there was any local facilitation or network involved in its preparation or dissemination.
These questions have a significance beyond this particular incident. If personal information belonging to vulnerable employees has been obtained and circulated in a threatening communication, determining the source and pathway of that information is essential to assessing the seriousness of the threat and preventing further targeting. KPSS consequently characterises these not as political questions but as security questions requiring credible answers.
Return must mean more than physical presence
The final portion of the press release turns from the immediate threat to the larger question of what a meaningful return of Kashmiri Pandits would actually entail. KPSS argues that genuine brotherhood must manifest itself through protection, institutional accountability, social vigilance and an unequivocal rejection of intimidation. It says Kashmiri Pandits do not need ceremonial expressions of solidarity but confidence that their lives will be protected before violence occurs. They also need safeguards for ancestral property and institutions capable of identifying threats before they become fatal.
The organisation’s broader concern is that Kashmir cannot convincingly claim to have moved beyond the past if threats against Kashmiri Pandits continue to reproduce the same underlying fear, even through different mediums and under different circumstances. The question, as KPSS frames it, is stark: will Kashmiri Pandits be able to return and live as equal citizens, or will every return continue to carry the warning that their presence is temporary and their safety uncertain?
Its demands are consequently straightforward: threats must be investigated, security must be guaranteed, personal information must be protected, ancestral property rights must be safeguarded, and the right to return must be treated as a matter of security and justice rather than courage and chance.
The complete press release may be read below:
Related:
‘Wherever You Go, We are watching’: Second threat letter to Kashmiri Pandits
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Time has come to go on fast unto death: Sanjay Tickoo
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