Hence, on this anniversary, the KPSS makes an appeal to international bodies concerned about resolving the Kashmir dispute; those concerned about the preservation of Kashmiriyat; to the entire Kashmiri Leadership to first take a firm stand to ensure that the perpetrators behind the killings of the Kashmiri Pandit Community are brought to book.
Nineteen long years have passed since January 25, 1998, some gunmen killed 23 Kashmiri Pandits at Wandhama, Ganderbal and to date these gunmen are “Unidentified” in the records of the investigation.
Not a single person stands punished or even identified by those responsible for protecting the lives and properties of citizens and maintaining law and order in Jammu and Kashmir.
Though an FIR was registered in this matter (No.22/1998), but it has been gathering dust due to deliberate inactiveness of the Police Department and faulty investigation which bore no result at all.
On the same day in the year 1990, a massacre took place in Handwara Main Chowk when thousands of people gathered in the Main Chowk of Handwara to condemn the Gow Kadal Massacre which took place on January 21, 1990. It took the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) ten long years to understand why the perpetrators choose January 25, 1998, this date, to take revenge for the Handwara Massacre from the Indian Establishment by killing 23 Kashmiri Pandits in Wandhama.
Though the victims of Wandhama Massacre were in no way involved in any sort of violence against the majority community, it was they who were made to pay the price for the criminal wrong doings of the Indian Establishment in Handwara.
It is an irony that every criminal case pertaining to the killing of Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir is closed for want of evidence and the persons to date have remained “Un-identified” or the investigation deliberately weakened made faulty so that the culprit(s) was / were able to be set free for the lack of clinching evidence.
According to state government figures, there are nearly 110 FIRs filed in different Police Stations for the killing of 219 Kashmiri Pandits since 1989, but to date the killers of this miniscule community have not been brought to justice.
Our independent survey and detailed verification tells a different story. Of all incidents where Pandits have been targeted in the valley, as many as 670 Kashmiri Pandits have been killed by gunmen and out of which nearly 452 had been shot dead by November 1990 alone. It was this that forced a fear ridden community, in a miniscule minority, to leave the Valley, merely to save their lives.
Unfortunately neither any government authority nor any civil society forum from the Kashmir Valley has taken up this matter with any seriousness and ensured that the perpetrators could be booked and brought to justice; on the contrary, these perpetrators enjoy the patronage of leaders from both main-stream or separatist camps. A cynical politics is being played on the issue of the return of Kashmiri Pandits.
Hence, on this anniversary, the KPSS makes an appeal to international bodies concerned about resolving the Kashmir dispute; those concerned about the preservation of Kashmiriyat; to the entire Kashmiri Leadership to first take a firm stand to ensure that the perpetrators behind the killings of the Kashmiri Pandit Community are brought to book.
“Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”.
(The author is President KPSS)