Forced exit

A militant group’s claim of killing a non-Kashmiri businessman for obtaining a domicile certificate has posed a new challenge for government and security forces

- TARIQ BHAT

FOR MORE THAN four decades, Satpal Nischal had been running a jewellery shop on Hari Singh High Street, one of Srinagar’s prominent commercial hubs. On December 31, a gunman entered his shop and shot him dead. “At 6:10pm, I heard a (popping) sound twice. I thought it came from the electric wires,” said Rakesh, Satpal’s elder son. “Then I saw a boy firing at my father with a pistol.”

Rakesh said several bullets also hit the spot where his son Param was seated minutes before the attack. “Since it was closing time, Param had gone to fetch the car from the parking lot,’’ he said. “We rushed daddy to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.”

The cold-blooded murder of the 70-year-old jeweller has created widespread fear in the area. Satpal is the first person to be killed apparently for having obtained a certificate under the new domicile law which was introduced after the revocation of Article 370. The new law allows people who have lived in Kashmir for more than 15 years to buy immovable property. Earlier, only permanent residents could buy immovable property in Jammu and Kashmir. (A permanent resident is someone who was a state subject on May 14, 1954, or has been a resident of the state for 10 years and has lawfully acquired immovable property.) Both separatists and local political parties are opposed to the new law and have accused the BJP of using it to change the demography of Jammu and Kashmir.