How Kashmiri Pandits Are Responding to Recent Spate of Threat Letters

Srinagar: Every time T.N. Dhar* leaves for the office, his wife and children cast a grimacing look, as if to restrain him.

“They are fearful about my safety,” he tells The Wire from his apartment in Veervan, a sprawling residential complex for returnee Kashmiri Pandits set amid the rolling hills of Baramulla district.

Dhar, who is employed at the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh high court, was among thousands of Kashmiri Pandits who were displaced in the early 1990s, during the outbreak of militancy in the region. But he and many others like him opted to return in 2008 under the Rs 16,000 crore rehabilitation package announced by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Conversations with Dhar are suffused with joy-tinged nostalgia as he recalls the “beautiful years” of living as a teenager in Sogam village in Kashmir’s Kupwara district. “We used to live very amicably alongside our Muslim neighbours to the point that we would stay at each other’s places overnight,” he recalls.

But he soon retires into a grim silence. “Today we don’t,” he laments. “That trust has broken since.”

Over the last few days, Pandits living in camps like Veervan are gripped by a sense of fear as back-to-back threat letters from purported militant groups have surfaced on social media warning employees of a “sudden calamity” because of their perceived closeness to New Delhi.

Issued under the banner of United Liberation Council, which the police describe as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the letter surfaced on August 23. It named six Kashmiri Pandit employees in the purported ‘target-list’, along with their Jammu-based addresses. The letter accuses the employees of “trying to implement the RSS agenda” in Jammu and Kashmir, and of other alleged "traitorous acts and conducts”.

It was the second such letter that surfaced within a month. On August 7, a previous letter under a similar letterhead had threatened six Kashmiri Pandits working in the J&K’s revenue department. The letter accused them of “behaving disrespectfully” with the locals, and of having “New Delhi’s backing”.

Personal information leaked

The back-to-back threats have raised fresh concerns, especially about how the militant groups were able to access precise details - including the information about their cellphone contacts, their workplaces and their postal addresses based in Jammu - about them, even as the region has witnessed an intense crackdown on terrorist networks over the last seven years.

The threats are also coming at a time when the government is reopening cases pertaining to the murders of Kashmiri Pandit individuals during the peak of the  militancy in the 1990s.

In June, J&K’s State Investigative Agency (SIA) filed a 737-page chargesheet naming Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairperson Yasin Malik as the prime accused in the brutal killing of Sarla Bhat, a nurse at the neonatology ward at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar.

Bhat was abducted by militants from the SKIMS hostel on April 18, 1990, and her bullet-riddled body was retrieved 13 km away in Malabagh neighbourhood of Srinagar the following day.

Earlier this month, the SIA also raided nine locations in Kashmir in connection with the probe into the killings of Kashmiri Pandit poet-scholar Sarwanand Koul Premi and his son Virender Koul. Both of them were gunned down by militants in their village in Sofshali in Anantnag district in 1990.

Also read: Demand for Kashmiri Pandits' Return Resurfaces But Ground Realities Tell a Harder Story

On August 27, a third letter appeared on social media, explicitly linking the fresh threats to the reopening of old cases.

That same day, senior security sources told The Wire that their investigation found that all employees (mentioned in the August 23 letter) were working in the J&K Transport Department.

“Pursuant to this, the Regional Transport Office in Srinagar was raided and a couple of persons were apprehended who were found to have links with the Pakistan-based entities,” a senior source told The Wire.

“Further investigation will determine the nature of their involvement (or lack thereof) in passing the information to terrorists about the Pandit employees. But their connections to persons based in Pakistan are confirmed so far.”

Ever since the threatening material appeared on social media, the All PM Package Employees Forum Kashmir, the body representing the rehabilitated families, has demanded the government reconsider their security arrangements. “The repeated circulation of such threat letters and posters, particularly those containing sensitive personal information, is a matter of grave concern," the forum said in the letter.

Separately, Kashmiri Pandits Sanghrash Samiti (KPSS), a body representing around 800 Pandit families living in Kashmir, criticised a purported statement by the BJP’s state general secretary Ashok Koul in light of the ongoing threats, in which he is said to have argued that “targeted killings (in Kashmir) won’t stop”.

Koul has denied making the comments attributed to him by the KPSS. "On the contrary, I said that while the threats might continue, it is the killings that won't happen. Even I get threats from Pakistan every day," he told The Wire.

“For years, the return of Kashmiri Pandits has been described as essential to restoring the pluralistic character of Kashmir. Yet when they return, they are expected to adjust; when they seek security, they are reminded that the situation is improving; when they raise questions concerning their ancestral properties, they are encouraged to look towards the future; and when a threat again appears carrying personal details, they are expected to demonstrate patience, restraint and faith,” the statement read.

Changes to daily life

Dhar, the resident of Veervan, told The Wire he didn’t know where the threats were coming from but described them as a work of “anti-national elements” who were opposed to their rehabilitation.

“Whenever the Pandits start finding their feet and living alongside our Muslim brothers like we used to, there are elements who don’t seem to like it,” he said.

Dhar said that since the letters appeared on social media, he had grown more cautious and leaves the colony quarters only after informing his family and sharing the names and identities of the people he was going to accompany.

“Anything can happen anytime. I go to my office in my own car. Yet when my car gets stuck in a traffic jam, I roll up the windows,” he said. “I always feel like someone is stalking me and watching over my movements.”

Dhar was 16 years old in 1990 when widespread unrest swept through the entire Valley. The targeting killings and sloganeering against their community made matters worse, forcing them to fold their belongings and leave for the plains of Jammu.

“In Sogam, there were only six to seven Pandit homes in our locality,” he said. “There was one particular Pandit man we knew. He had gone missing. Later his body was found hanging on a Chinar tree. Incidents like these forced us to stay in exile even when we may have wanted to return.”

Also read: The Rise, Exile, and Fading Footprints of Kashmiri Pandits

Numerous Pandit families living in gated societies across Kashmir told The Wire that they had stopped going outside even for groceries for fear of attacks, and instead waited for pick-up trucks at the gates from where they would buy daily essentials in bulk.

Avtar Koul*, a Pandit employee from Vessu Transit Camp in South Kashmir’s Kulgam district, told The Wire that while these threats might appear “mere impediments” to Kashmir’s “normalcy-obsessed news-cycle”, they had far more serious implications for the Pandit community.

“In 2021, I was looking forward to purchasing land near the railway tracks. I wasn’t very fond of living in the camps like a prisoner and therefore sought to build a home somewhere outside,” he said.

“But then, we heard reports about the killings of Satinder Kour and Deepak Chand,” he said, referring to the gruesome killings of a government school principal and a teacher in Srinagar in October 2021.

The 2021 redux

Those killings were the first among two dozen assassinations carried out by militant groups that continued through 2022 and 2023, mostly of members belonging to minority communities in Kashmir, including Pandits and Sikhs.

Koul said that the killings heightened the sense of insecurity for him, forcing him to abandon the decision.

“The same happens when these threat letters surface. It reminds us how unsafe we are. These threats are not coming out of a vacuum. They were preceded by two major incidents in Anantnag and Kulgam.”

On July 22, a head constable of J&K Police died in a militant attack near a busy market place in Anantnag, while two migrant labourers from Chhattisgarh were gunned down by the militants on July 31.

Koul was a teenager at the time of his family’s migration during the 1990s. His father worked at a post office in the Kupwara town in North Kashmir.

“We lived in a rented accommodation behind the bus stand in the Kupwara town even though we are originally from Wilgam, further 20 km from Kupwara,” Koul said.

“I remember how my father threw away his platter of rice with frustration as cries sounded outside,” Koul said, referring to the civil uprising that had accompanied the armed militancy in the early 1990s.

“We hardly stayed for two more days. On the third day, we left in the dead of the night and arrived in Jammu,” he said.

Rehabilitation plan was a success

Under the 2008 resettlement plan, at least 6,000 Pandit migrants were offered government jobs and transit accommodations in Kashmir. The Pandit employees are currently housed in numerous residential colonies such as Mattan in Anantnag, Vessu in Kulgam, Veervan in Baramulla and Sheikhpura in Budgam.

In 2021, Pandit employees and various non-migrant Pandits living in Kashmir faced various targeted attacks. A prominent killing was that of Rahul Bhat, a revenue department clerk, who was gunned down at the tehsil (revenue) office in Budgam district. Following his killing, scores of employees under the rehabilitation package launched major protests demanding justice.

The spate of killings had also led to a “second exodus” of sorts, with employees locking up their apartments in Kashmir and leaving for Jammu. They returned soon after, when situation normalised. The latest threats have also revived debates about the viability of the overall resettlement plan. Despite the limitations and the bad press, however, Pandit employees see the scheme as a major success.

“In terms of the overall picture, the policy has been immensely successful. It did help us reconnect with our roots,” said Koul. “When we came here, all our temples had fallen into decrepitude. They were reduced to rubble. But we gradually restored them and revived their vitality. On every major occasion, we visit them and nourish them with care. That’s the biggest outcome of this policy.”

The complexity of Pandit-Muslim relationships

Koul said that the policy had also led the community to rebuild social bonds with the Kashmiri Muslims. “Whenever we have a major function or ceremony, the first invitation goes out to our Muslim neighbours and acquaintances,” Koul said. “They are part of our joys and sorrows. Kashmiri society, in some ways, is a reflection of the Bharata nation.”

When The Wire asked the Pandit employees if they had currently cut back on their engagement with the Muslim community due to threats, they denied it, arguing that they were linked to their “Muslim brethren” through a shared spirit.

“We understand their situation as well. We only regret that there’s no major message at the mass level (against the militant threats),” he said. “Even today our political leaders such as (former chief minister) Farooq Abdullah are not coming out against it as explicitly as they should.”

Dhar, who had formerly headed All J&K Judicial Employees Union, said that the threat episodes have not impacted their relations with Muslim colleagues. In fact, not being able to interact with the wider Kashmiri society appeared to be his primary worries.

“It is sad that none of my colleagues and acquaintances, the majority of whom (lawyers, clients, litigants) happen to be local Muslims, are permitted to visit us after the evening hours. The gates are sealed off,” Dhar said

“In fact, one advocate colleague happens to be my closest friend. He is also a Muslim,” Dhar said. “His father in law died recently in Sheeri (in Baramulla) and due to the ongoing scare of threat letters, I couldn’t attend the last rites. In fact, my major worry is how I will face him when he resumes work.”

Dhar, however, admitted that he had been personally avoiding meeting his Muslim colleagues and preferred not to join them during the usual outings.

“Not because I am scared of being with them, but because I care for them,” he said. “If something happens to me tomorrow while they are with me, they would naturally come under suspicion despite being innocent. I don't want that to happen.”

*Names have been changed on request.

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