By targeting defenceless men and women belonging to the indigenous minority Hindu community as well as non-locals working in Kashmir, Pakistan sponsored terrorists have succeeded in creating a fear psychosis here.
Unfortunately, rather than expressing solidarity and reassuring the terrorised people, local political parties seem to be more interested in extracting political mileage from this humungous tragedy by accusing the government of gross security failure and instigation. While the authorities cannot escape responsibility for being unable to prevent such killings, there’s a need to examine this issue holistically.
How exactly will ‘targeted killings’ of minority community members and non-locals in Kashmir help terrorists in achieving their purported aim of the so called ‘armed struggle’?
The pro-Pakistan lobby and other vested interests have cunningly played the ‘public inconvenience’ card to get a large number of security check posts removed. As terrorists carrying out targeted killings are using pistols which can be easily concealed on their person, a body search is essential to check movement of such assassins.
Furthermore, with the recent killing of a Muslim woman TV artiste, Hindu Kashmiri women teachers, a non-local bank employee and migrant workers, it’s abundantly clear that virtually every Kashmiri is under threat of being murdered by terrorists. So, ensuring effective security for such a wide range of potential targets spread across the entire length and breadth of Kashmir is practically impossible.
Terrorists as well as their Pakistani mentors never tire of trying to legitimise brazen terrorism in Kashmir by eulogising it as a ‘freedom struggle’. In addition, Islamabad keeps demanding UNSC intervention in Kashmir and despite being repeatedly snubbed by the international community for seeking external mediation, it continues to peddle fabricated accounts of excesses and violation of rights here.
So, several questions come to mind. Firstly, doesn’t the rampant killings of defenceless civilians by terrorists in Kashmir tarnish the image of the so called ‘freedom struggle’? Secondly [and more importantly], how exactly will ‘targeted killings’ of minority community members and non-locals in Kashmir help terrorists in achieving their purported aim of the so called ‘armed struggle’? How is it that the so called developed pontificating Western countries remain mute spectators of this ethnic cleansing?
It’s not that this is the first time that Kashmir is witnessing targeted killings. Right from the day terrorism erupted here, senseless violence has been a constant factor and senior Hurriyat leader Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat has himself admitted this by saying that “This movement [terrorism in J&K] began with the assassinations of thinkers and the individuals who held an opinion.”
