And the ethnic cleansing continues

In tandem with military efforts to neutralize the terrorists what is required in Kashmir are confidence-building measures by the Muslim majority.

- VIVEK GUMASTE

The cold-blooded killing of three Hindus and a Sikh within a span of two days (5-7 October) is a grim and unmistakable reminder of the inherent character of the separatist movement in Kashmir: it is a fundamentalist, xenophobic campaign of violence fuelled by hatred towards Hindus and Sikhs that seeks to eradicate all non-Muslims from the valley. The recent carnage was an attempt to stall any new efforts to rehabilitate the Kashmiri Pandits and to ensure that the ethnic cleansing that was effected so successfully in the early 1990s is maintained.

Public memory is short and it is important to remind Indians repeatedly of the ruthless ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits that took place three decades ago.

The targeting of Hindus began in late 1989. The first to be killed was Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, a prominent leader of the Kashmiri Hindu Pandit community (like Makhan Lal Bindroo): he was gunned down in broad daylight outside his home.

Four months later, on 4 January 1990, Aftab, a local Urdu newspaper in Srinagar ran a press release issued by the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Hizbul Mujahideen, proclaiming jihad and asking all Hindus to leave the valley. Walls were plastered with posters asking Hindus to leave Kashmir, Hindu homes are dotted red and Hindu women are forced to sport marks on their foreheads (tilak); masked men with Kalashnikovs roamed the streets forcing people to reset their watches and clocks to Pakistan Standard Time. The scene was reminiscent of Nazi Germany only the yellow armbands damning the Jews were missing.

A reign of terror gripped the valley, the local government abdicated its responsibility, and the predominantly Muslim Kashmiri society, 7 million strong, feigned helplessness against a few hundred terrorists and abandoned the minority Hindu community to its fate.