J&K Admin Asks Kashmiri Pandit Employees in Education Departments of Two Districts to Work From Home

Srinagar: In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has asked all minority Kashmiri Pandit employees who are posted in the education department in at least two districts of the valley to work from home.

An order issued by the chief education officer (CEO) of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Wednesday (April 23) asked Kashmiri Pandit employees who have been hired under the prime minister’s special rehabilitation package to work from home for a week.

“All employees engaged under the PM Package are hereby directed to work from home for the duration of this week with immediate effect upto Sunday (i.e. 27-05-2025). All concerned employees shall remain available to carry out their duties and responsibilities,” the order stated without specifying any reason.

A similar directive titled ‘Work From Home’ and issued by CEO of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Wednesday also ordered all the employees of the minority community to work from home “till further orders”.

Neither officials specified the reasons for the orders which were issued a day after 25 domestic tourists from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha and other states and a local Kashmiri horse attendant were killed in a deadly attack by a group of four to five militants in Baisaran meadows of Pahalgam health resort.

According to official data, there are around 5,500 prime minister’s special rehabilitation package employees who have been hired under the Union government’s rehabilitation policy since 2010 and most of whom are posted in education, revenue and finance departments of Jammu and Kashmir.

The rehabilitation package was rolled out in 2008-2009 by the government of then prime minister Manmohan Singh to enable the return of the minority community to their homeland in Kashmir.

Following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, several Kashmiri Pandits, including some PM package employees, and non-local workers were killed in waves of targeted attacks across the valley, most of which were claimed by The Resistance Front, an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba outfit that has also claimed the attack in Pahalgam.

The targeted attacks had prompted some of the employees to flee to their native places in Jammu, New Delhi and other parts of the country where they had migrated along with their families in the aftermath of the eruption of armed insurgency in the early 1990s.

In 2021-2022, following a spate of targeted attacks in Kashmir, the PM package employees from the minority community had gone on a strike which lasted for about a year while demanding that the Union government led by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) should transfer them out of Kashmir for their safety.

Alert and shutdowns

Meanwhile, candle light vigils were taken out on Wednesday night by civil society groups, traders and students among others in parts of Kashmir to protest the carnage in Pahalgam. A complete shutdown was also observed in Jammu division as well as Kashmir valley in protest against the attack.

All the private schools and some government-run educational institutions were also closed while the government offices and banks recorded low attendance on Wednesday as some employees struggled to find public transport to reach their offices.

Security forces in Jammu and Kashmir are on the highest degree of alert following the Pahalgam attack, which has sent shockwaves across the country, even as a search operation is underway in Lidder Valley and its adjoining areas to hunt down the perpetrators.

An all-party meeting is scheduled to be held in the national capital on Thursday which is likely to be chaired by the Union defence minister Rajnath Singh who is expected to brief the gathering about the Pahalgam attack. Union home minister Amit Shah is also expected to attend the meeting.

Shah visited the site of the attack which unfolded in Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam on Wednesday and later paid floral tribute to the deceased at police headquarters in Srinagar following which the mortal remains were handed to their families.

J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah has also convened an all-party meeting at Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre in Srinagar at 3 pm on Thursday to discuss the prevailing situation and express joint condemnation of the worst attack on tourists in Kashmir since the armed insurgency broke out in the early 1990s.

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