10 Kashmiri Pandit families leave their village in Shopian fearing target killing

As terrorists carried out a number of targeted killings recently, 10 Kashmiri Pandit families have left their village in Shopian district in south Kashmir out of fear and reached Jammu.

The residents of Choudharygund said the recent terrorist attacks have triggered a fear psychosis among the Pandits who lived in Kashmir through the most difficult period of terrorism in 1990s and did not leave their homes.

Kashmiri Pandit Puran Krishan Bhat was gunned down by terrorists outside his ancestral house in Choudharygund village of Shopian district on October 15. On October 18, Monish Kumar and Ram Sagar were killed in a grenade attack by terrorists while they were asleep in their rented accommodation in Shopian.

"Ten families comprising 35 to 40 Kashmiri Pandits have migrated out of our village due to the fear psychosis," a resident of Choudharygund village who faced a death threat recently told PTI.

He said the village was now empty.

"The situation is not conducive for us to live in the Kashmir valley. We live in fear due to the killings. There is no security for us," another villager said.

The villagers alleged a police post was set up away from their village even though they repeatedly sought protection.

They said they have left everything in their houses, even the recent harvest of apple.

Those who have reached Jammu are living with their relatives.

According to a report in the The New Indian Express, Kashmir Pandit Sangarsh Samiti (KPSS) president Sanjay Tickoo said that nine non-migrant Pandit families living in Chowdari Gund area of Shopian in south Kashmir left for Jammu on Monday. 

He pointed out the families left for Jammu even as their apple yield is still lying unpackaged and unsold on their farms. Tickoo said the nine families who left for Jammu had not migrated from the Valley when members of the community migrated en-masse after the eruption of militancy in 1989.