Srinagar: Kashmir Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) has strongly condemned the issuance of threat letters and the killing of Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Hindus living in the Valley.
In a statement, the body representing Kashmiri Pandits living in the Valley said that the situation is returning to 1990. “In 1990, killings lists were circulated in mosques and in 2022 these lists are circulated on the internet and social media, just modus operandi has changed but the mentality is the same as what we minorities faced in the early 1990s,” it said.
According to the statement, some “vicious” and “ill minded” persons who are using the cover of a particular religion are hell-bent on the annihilation of the religious minorities living in Kashmir.
“As these kinds of heinous and barbaric acts are not possible without logistic support from the local population and the role of the Kashmiri society, though small in number, cannot be out rightly absolved for the targeted crimes happening against Kashmiri Pandits/Kashmiri Hindus living in Kashmir Valley,” it added.
“Every gunman known or unknown is a local person and their helping OGWs are also from our own Kashmiri society who create fake trust with religious minorities to collect details and help these gunmen to kill Kashmiri Pandits/ Kashmiri Hindus living in Kashmir. In 1990, religious minorities were backstabbed and forced to leave Kashmir by creating a hostile environment, time and again similar conditions were created in 2022 to force Kashmiri Pandits / Kashmiri Hindus to leave Kashmir Valley,” it said.
It said that though these persons were always small in number, the “collective silence maintained by the rest creates trust deficits with never ending voids between the communities”.
“The safety of minorities is at stake and the government is least bothered by the situation. This clearly shows either the administration is not interested in saving minorities or they are incompetent to handle the situation. In both cases, Kashmir is pushed into the darkness that engulfed this place during the early 1990s.”

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Reader correspondent