Kashmir’s leading Pandit activist still lives in as most Kashmiris once lived, in a traditional house made of mud in the narrow, serpentine alleys in the old city, one of the last Pandits left in an area that his community abandoned three decades ago.


With time, the rundown walls of the house have come to bear a stark resemblance with Sanjay Tickoo’s thoughtful face, somewhat worn but warm.


“These walls are home,” said Tickoo, 57. “They might not be fashionable in Kashmir anymore, but this is where my solace lies.”


A former manager in the sales department of a private company, Tickoo, 57, and the last remaining Pandits of Kashmir confront fear and anxiety as minorities again become targets of the region’s long-running conflict.


Tickoo is the head of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS)—a body of Kashmiri Hindus, commonly known as Pandits, who did not flee the Kashmir Valley during the 1990s, when an armed insurrection caused more than 60,000 Pandits to migrate to Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country.


On 13 June, the KPSS put out a tweet that caught public attention. “#CITEZENS (sic) OF INDIA PLEASE SAVE RESIDENT KASHMIRI PANDITS/HINDUS IN THE VALLEY AS SOMETHING FISHY IS GOING TO HAPPEN AGAINST US.”


In an interview with Article 14, Tickoo said the tweet was meant to draw the attention of Indians to their insecure situation after a series of assassinations of Pandits, migrants and others, at a time when the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) government was claiming that the situation in the union territory was better than ever, with thousands of tourists arriving and development projects underway.


“The government is lying that everything is hunky dory in Kashmir,” said Tickoo, who said the fear of death resurfaced after 5 August 2019, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the revocation of Article 370, which granted limited autonomy to the restive region.


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