The recent threat to Kashmiri Pandit government employees working in the Valley has brought back a question that has remained unresolved for years: what does rehabilitation mean when those who have returned to work in Kashmir continue to live with the fear of being identified, targeted and forced to leave again?
In a conversation with Sabrang India, Sanjay Tickoo, president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), said the latest incident must be understood against the backdrop of targeted killings, repeated security concerns and what he described as a persistent failure to address vulnerabilities faced by Kashmiri Pandit employees.
The immediate trigger is a purported threat letter circulated online in the name of the United Liberation Council (ULC), which warned Kashmiri Pandits working in the Valley to “change their ways” and published the names and phone numbers of employees. Police are reportedly verifying the authenticity of the letter, while security officials have suggested that the group could be a front or shadow organisation of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
According to The Indian Express, six employees, all from the Revenue Department, were named in the letter. The newspaper reported that departments, particularly the Revenue Department and School Education Department, had informally asked Kashmiri Pandit employees to remain at home or take leave, although the Director of School Education denied that any formal instructions had been issued. The New Indian Express likewise reported that Pandit employees had been asked to work from home for some time.
The detailed report may be read here.
Tickoo, however, argues that the immediate controversy over the letter obscures a much deeper problem.
A threat that cannot be seen in isolation
According to Tickoo, targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits began to re-emerge as a serious concern from 2021 onwards. On October 5, 2021, prominent Kashmiri Hindu pharmacist Makhan Lal Bindroo was shot dead inside his pharmacy in Srinagar. Two days later, on October 7, Supinder Kour, a government school principal, and Deepak Chand, a teacher at the same school, were shot dead inside the school premises in Srinagar’s Eidgah area. These killings were part of a broader spate of targeted attacks against civilians, including Kashmiri Pandits and non-local workers. Government data recorded four Kashmiri Pandits among those killed by terrorists in 2021, further deepening the sense of vulnerability among the community and raising renewed questions over the security of those living and working in the Valley. The killings generated widespread fear within the community and renewed concerns over whether Kashmiri Pandits working in the Valley could be adequately protected.
The security environment subsequently intensified, with security forces conducting anti-militancy operations and authorities questioning individuals suspected of having links with militant networks, including alleged overground workers.
But for employees under the Prime Minister’s employment package, the problem was not limited to attacks themselves. The availability and circulation of personal information of employees became a recurring security concern. Around 6,000 Kashmiri Pandits have received government employment under the Prime Minister’s Special Rehabilitation and Employment Package, introduced in 2010 as part of the government’s effort to facilitate the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits displaced from the Valley following the outbreak of militancy and the mass displacement of the community in the 1990s.
The employment package was premised on an important condition: beneficiaries were expected to work in the Valley. But, as Tickoo points out, the same requirement that forms the basis of the rehabilitation policy also leaves employees particularly vulnerable when security deteriorates.
The lists that keep resurfacing
This is not the first time the publication of employee details has raised alarm. In December 2022, Kashmiri Pandit employees protested after a purported hit list released by The Resistance Front (TRF) named 56 Kashmiri Pandits working in the Valley under the Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package. The employees demanded a high-level investigation into how official information identifying them had reached a militant organisation.
At the time, the employees were already protesting outside the Relief Commissioner’s office in Jammu following the targeted killing of Rahul Bhat in Chadoora on May 1, 2022.
The concern was straightforward: if the State had collected the personal information of employees for the purposes of rehabilitation and employment, how was that information reaching organisations issuing threats against them? Tickoo told Sabrang India that the problem has never really been resolved. According to him, lists containing details of Prime Minister’s Package employees have continued to circulate publicly on social media.
He believes the same publicly available information is now being exploited again. Tickoo said that while a larger list of around 20 employees is allegedly available on social media, the latest threat letter specifically identified seven employees with their full names and phone numbers. This differs from reports in The Indian Express, which identified six employees named in the purported letter.
For Tickoo, the issue is therefore not simply the existence of a threatening poster. It is how such specific personal information continues to become available in the first place. “How are these posters being posted on social media?” is the question he says the government must answer. More importantly, he asks, who is providing private information about government employees to those circulating the threats?
‘Since 2022, meetings have resulted in nothing’
Tickoo said the issue has repeatedly been raised with the government. According to him, several meetings have taken place with the Secretary of the Home Department since 2022, but they have not resulted in any meaningful resolution of the concerns raised by Kashmiri Pandit employees.
The latest episode comes after a period in which violence and insecurity have again been building in parts of Kashmir. Tickoo referred to the recent killing of a policeman in Anantnag and the subsequent killing of two migrant workers in Kulgam. The Wire reported the killing of policeman Ashiq Hussain Qureshi in Anantnag on June 22 while he was deployed for Amarnath Yatra duty, followed by the July 31 killing of two migrant workers from Chhattisgarh at a brick kiln in Kulgam.
The sequence, Tickoo argues, has heightened apprehension that further attacks could take place, including against minorities and migrant workers. For him, the responsibility ultimately rests with the government. Tickoo described the situation as a security lapse on the part of either the Union government or the Jammu and Kashmir administration, while expressing frustration that neither level of government has accepted responsibility.
When security concerns undermine rehabilitation
The contradiction at the heart of the Prime Minister’s Package is difficult to ignore. The government encourages displaced Kashmiri Pandits to return to the Valley and provides employment as part of its rehabilitation programme. Yet when security threats emerge, the immediate response is reportedly to ask those very employees to stay indoors or remain away from work.
That contradiction has existed for years. In 2022, after a series of targeted killings, Kashmiri Pandit employees staged a prolonged protest and demanded transfers outside Kashmir. The Indian Express reported that employees protested for around 350 days and sought permanent relocation to Jammu. The government rejected the demand and instead relocated some employees to areas considered safer within the Valley.
Tickoo argues that the latest episode risks producing the same outcome: employees who have been asked to return to Kashmir are once again made to feel that their presence there is unsafe. And the consequences extend beyond the immediate threat.
According to Tickoo, when employees leave the Valley because they feel unsafe, they risk losing the benefits attached to the rehabilitation package because those benefits are linked to their continuing residence and employment in Kashmir.
In other words, the employee is caught between two vulnerabilities: remaining in Kashmir despite a credible fear for personal safety, or leaving and potentially jeopardising the very rehabilitation benefits that were meant to facilitate their return.
‘They cannot simply return to work’
The latest threat has also created a practical problem for the employees whose names and numbers were published. Tickoo said that once an individual’s identity and telephone number have been publicly circulated alongside a threat, simply telling that person to return to work does not address the fear created by the threat.
The issue is particularly serious, he argues, because several of the employees named in the latest poster work in departments where their official responsibilities may place them in contact with people who have vested interests in government enforcement.
Tickoo specifically referred to employees working in Regional Transport Offices and alleged that private agents operating around these offices had historically relied on bribery to obtain driving licences and vehicle fitness certificates. According to him, the arrival of Kashmiri Pandit employees under the Prime Minister’s Package and their adherence to official procedures had disrupted such practices. He alleged that this could be one reason why employees working in these positions had become targets.
These claims are Tickoo’s allegations and would require independent investigation. But they point towards another dimension of the controversy: whether threats against government employees are connected not only to their identity as Kashmiri Pandits, but also to the particular government functions they perform.
The problem of the ‘unofficial’ order
Another striking feature of the present episode is the absence of a formal government order. The Indian Express reported that departments had verbally instructed Kashmiri Pandit employees to remain at home, while the Director of School Education publicly denied issuing such instructions. The Wire similarly reported that employees had received work-from-home directions through departmental or internal channels, without a publicly available formal order.
Tickoo says this informality is not accidental. According to him, governments in Kashmir often avoid issuing formal orders in such situations because an official directive to keep an entire section of employees away from their workplaces would amount to an acknowledgement that the security establishment has failed to protect them.
He also argues that a formal order could invite judicial scrutiny, particularly if employees are effectively prevented from discharging their duties because of their identity. The result, he says, is a system of verbal instructions in which everyone understands what is expected, but nobody formally accepts responsibility for the decision.
The question of the source
For Tickoo, the publication of phone numbers is perhaps the most troubling aspect of the latest episode. He questioned how individuals operating underground could obtain such specific information and circulate it publicly. He also questioned whether the source of the information could be traced and why the authorities had not yet established who was behind the dissemination of the posters.
The question is particularly significant because the purported threat does not merely make a general warning against a community. It identifies individuals. That transforms the issue from a broad security concern into a question of data security, official confidentiality and institutional responsibility. If employee lists are available openly on social media, the government must establish how they reached the public domain, whether official databases were compromised, whether the information was leaked deliberately or inadvertently, and whether those responsible for the disclosure can be identified.
Without such an investigation, the cycle is likely to repeat.
A growing lack of faith
Tickoo also spoke of what he described as a wider erosion of faith in the security establishment. According to him, people in Kashmir have been warning the Union government for the last three to four years that something appeared to be building up. Those concerns, he believes, have not received adequate attention. The latest threat therefore carries significance beyond the employees reportedly named in it.
If employees believe that their personal details can be obtained, that threats can be issued against them, and that the government response will be to ask them to remain indoors rather than identify the source of the threat, confidence in the security system inevitably weakens. For the Kashmiri Pandit community, this is particularly consequential because rehabilitation itself depends on a measure of trust.
Rehabilitation cannot mean confinement
The contradiction becomes even sharper against the backdrop of public celebrations and government campaigns in the Valley. The Wire reported heightened security arrangements ahead of Independence Day, including additional checkpoints, frisking, night patrols and surveillance. At the same time, authorities and BJP workers have been organising Tiranga rallies, cultural programmes, sporting events and other public activities as part of the Har Ghar Tiranga–Vande Mataram campaign.
Tickoo questions the contrast. If a minority community is being informally asked to remain indoors because of security threats, he asks, how can the government simultaneously claim that normalcy has been restored and organise public celebrations across the Valley?
For him, the issue is not opposition to public celebrations. It is the contradiction between projecting normal public life and privately instructing a vulnerable section of the population to restrict its movement. The question is ultimately one of whose normalcy is being protected.
‘Why are the Pandits still suffering?’
Tickoo’s larger argument is that the government cannot continue treating every such episode as an isolated security incident. The latest threat may be attributed to a purported militant organisation. The police may establish that the letter is genuine or fabricated. The perpetrators may eventually be identified—or they may not. But, Tickoo argues, the underlying problem remains.
Over the past several years, Kashmiri Pandit employees have faced targeted killings, threats, protests, demands for transfers, security restrictions and repeated uncertainty over whether they can safely continue working in the Valley.
A rehabilitation policy that requires employees to live and work in Kashmir cannot succeed merely by providing employment. It must also ensure that they can move freely, access public spaces, perform their jobs and live ordinary lives without being forced into periodic confinement because of their identity.
The latest threat therefore raises questions that go beyond the purported organisation behind the poster. Who has access to the employees’ personal information? Why have repeated concerns about leaked lists not produced a satisfactory answer? Why are employees once again being asked to stay indoors instead of being given a transparent security assessment? And how long can a rehabilitation policy function if its beneficiaries repeatedly feel compelled to leave the Valley for their own safety?
For Tickoo, the larger failure is one of accountability. He argues that when security lapses occur, the State can point towards an organisation, a militant network or actors across the border. But if threats are able to reach identifiable employees and disrupt their everyday lives, the State must also account for the security failures within its own institutional framework.
The danger, he says, is that anyone could claim to represent a fabricated organisation, circulate threats and create fear and disruption, while the government simply attributes the episode to forces operating from across the border. That, however, does not answer the question of how the information reached them. Nor does it answer the question of why, after years of assurances and repeated meetings, Kashmiri Pandit employees continue to feel that their return to the Valley comes with an unresolved risk.
The latest threat letter may disappear from social media. The informal work-from-home instructions may eventually be withdrawn. Employees may be asked to return to their offices. But unless the questions around security, accountability and leaked personal information are answered, the larger problem will remain: a community encouraged to return in the name of rehabilitation, but repeatedly reminded that its safety in the Valley remains uncertain.
Related:
This is what we feared: Sanjay Tickoo on the rising attacks in Kashmir since March
Pleas of non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits have fallen on deaf ears: Sanjay Tickoo
Time has come to go on fast unto death: Sanjay Tickoo
Kashmiri Pandit leader Sanjay Tickoo talks about Governor’s Rule in J&K
A Kashmiri Pandit fact-checks The Kashmir Files
10 reasons why Kashmiri Pandits feel betrayed in the Valley