Editorial: Another exodus from Valley

A fresh wave of terrorist attacks targeting Hindus and migrant workers has triggered fear and panic, prompting the Kashmiri Pandit families to leave the Valley in a turn of events that brings back the bitter memories of the 1990s when militancy was at its peak. The Centre must take the responsibility for the rapid deterioration of the security situation despite the repeated claims of restoration of normalcy. A bank manager hailing from Rajasthan and a brick kiln worker from Bihar were shot dead by suspected militants within a span of a few hours, two days after a woman teacher from Jammu was gunned down outside her school. Over the past three weeks, there have been eight attacks targeting minorities. A pall of gloom has enveloped the Valley following the killings while a sense of despair and anxiety is palpable at the camps of Kashmiri Pandits in Budgam and Pulwama. However, panic and mass migration would actually mean playing into the hands of the terror networks, which the Jammu & Kashmir Police believe are resorting to such tactics in desperation. Last year, at least 35 civilians were killed in the Valley, but the spike in targeted attacks has been attributed to the gunning down of a huge number of terrorists, including those in leadership roles, destruction of their support structures and the locals not responding to their diktats. The frustration over their rapidly thinning presence and support has led to the targeting of unarmed policemen and civilians from the minority communities.

The targeted civilian killings and attacks on security forces have ripped through the veneer of complacency woven around the abrogation of Article 370 that ended the special status for Jammu & Kashmir. On one hand, scrapping Article 370 has alienated the mainstream political parties with their leaders being detained under tough laws, the changing geopolitical dynamics in the neighbourhood has, on the other hand, made the security situation in the trouble-torn Valley more vulnerable. The surge in violence is linked to the increasing presence in the Valley of foreign militants who are pushing young Kashmiris to carry out these killings. The Centre has failed to take the necessary follow-up measures to reach out to the people and allowed the historic move to be reduced to a political brownie point. The developments in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover have dramatically altered the security scenario. The pattern of recent killings, picking non-Muslim targets, suggests a throwback to the 1990s, a decade marked by mayhem leading to the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley. This xenophobic impulse has a larger connotation of hatred. In the 1990s, a large segment of the minority population fled the Valley giving the separatists, terror groups and their sponsors the space to pursue their agenda.

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