Kashmir killings: Attempt to foil Amit Shah's J&K visit continues

Mostly in the first 15 years of the militancy, selective killings of the non-Muslims happened at several places including some massacres of the Hindus in the Muslim-dominated Chenab and Pir Panjal mountain ranges of the Jammu province.

Notwithstanding all such target killings, Muslims account for over 96 per cent of all the civilians killed in J&K in the last 31 years. Everybody perceived to be against the militants or Pakistan or identifying himself with India or participating in the Indian democratic processes is an open target of the militants. All such victims are labelled as ‘informers of the security forces’, ‘collaborators’ or ‘RSS stooges’.

The worst of the minority killings happened from the year 1997 to 2003. The current month’s killing of 7 members of the minority communities – 1 Kashmiri Pandit, 1 Kashmiri Sikh, 5 non-Kashmiri Hindu workers – is no match to the 5 massacres in which as many as 100 persons, mostly Hindu pilgrims and brick-kiln workers, were killed in 36 hours at Pahalgam, Mir Bazar, Sandoo Achhbala, Doda and Khodinad village of Banihal between 1 and 2 August, 2000.


In the construction and agriculture sector, J&K is hugely dependent on the skilled and unskilled workers – carpenters, masons, painters, brick layers, barbers et al – from Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Punjab.

Officials in the office of the J&K Labour Commissioner put the number of such non-J&K workers at around 300,000 in the summer season. Many of them have been operating their own confectioneries, restaurants and salons in Srinagar and other districts since the 1980s and 1990s. Hundreds of such permanent seasonal workers, mostly from Bihar, are golgappa hawkers. Hindus and Muslims, they stay together at Hyderpora, Chanapora, Rambagh, Habbakadal and other city interiors in Srinagar besides in rural areas in the valley.

Officials believe around 25 per cent of the non-J&K workers stay and work in Jammu and other districts of the Jammu province even as 75 per cent prefer to earn their livelihood in Kashmir.

To ne continued.....