Puran Krishan Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit killed by terrorists in the Valley, was cremated in Jammu on Sunday. Bhat’s body was brought to his Jammu residence from the Chaudrigund village of Shopian district Saturday evening.

He was shot and killed by the terrorists outside his ancestral home in Chaudrigund village Saturday morning. Terror organisation Kashmir Freedom Fighters (KFF) – a new proxy Pak-backed terror group like The Resistance Front (TRF) – claimed responsibility for the attack.

Bhat had reportedly shifted his wife and the two children – a son studying in Class 5 and a daughter who is in Class 7 – to Jammu in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. Before that, all of them were living in Shopian.

He was a frequent visitor to his ancestral home – on Thursday, he had gone there to join his brother to attend to their apple orchard.

Bhat’s assassination triggered protests from Kashmiri Pandits serving under the Prime Minister’s package in the Valley who reiterated their demand to be relocated to Jammu division. A large group of people, including Kashmiri Pandits and others participated in the last rites of Bhat.

“He left behind two little children. He was the only breadwinner. Now, he’s no more. Everything is finished. It is a targeted killing. They don’t kill just anyone who comes before them but those whom they don’t like. They don’t want Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir,” Bhat’s brother-in-law said.

Puran Krishan Bhat’s wife and young children – daughter Shreya and son Shanu – were inconsolable at their father’s funeral. Bhat’s sister said Shreya had pleaded with her father not to go to Kashmir this time as she had a bad premonition, but Bhat went as the apple trade was the only source of money for providing for his family. The family is now asking for compensation of Rs 50 lakhs and a job for Bhat’s wife so that the children’s upbringing and future education needs are taken care of.

Bhat’s sister added that there is an Army camp near the place where her brother was shot dead, but Army usually patrols in the night whereas most targeted killings are being carried out in broad daylight. Another relative said that this was the 18th killing of a Hindu in the last 2 years in the valley, and these repeated attacks had exposed the government’s claims of providing security as hollow.

Police haven’t ruled out the possibility of a local guard’s involvement in the targeted murder of Puran Bhat.

Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Sujit Kumar said, “In the initial investigation, eyewitnesses say that there was only one person who had targeted him and was in front of him. Nobody has spotted anyone else who might be hiding….He (Puran Bhat) had gone out on his scooter and had returned on it. He wasn’t alone; there were two people. If the incident occurred in the presence of the guard who was deployed here, action will cover not only him but all concerned officers in the area.”

During the 1990 religious cleansing of Hindus from the valley, several Islamists policemen and other locals had played a key role in the murders and intimidation of Hindus, either directly or indirectly. The religious cleansing continues to this day and indoctrination of ordinary Muslims remains high.

Dozens of Kashmiri Hindus, migrants workers from other parts of the country and even some local Muslims labeled ‘police informers’ or ‘apostates’ have been murdered in cold-blood ever since the much-needed abrogation of Article 370. While there has been a definite reduction in the regular cycle of violence that used to engulf Kashmir before, the situation still remains extremely perilous and rehabilitation of the expelled Kashmiri Hindu community remains a pipe dream.

In this scenario, going for elections in March-April next year, as is being speculated, could prove disastrous and fritter away all hard-fought gains of the last 3 years. What Kashmir needs is firm yet sensitive rule for at least 1-2 decades so that the Islamist indoctrination infrastructure is dismantled and people are allowed to breathe freely away from the poisonous influence of ‘mainstream’ politicians from PDP, NC, Congress and new ‘secular’ pretenders like AAP.

Till that time, any attempt to resettle Hindus in the area, or forcing them to report for duty in the valley just to prove a political point, is making sitting ducks out of them. Unless the Indian state works up the guts to carve out a separate, well-defended area like Panun Kashmir for Kashmiri and other Hindus, it needs to stop playing dice with Hindu lives.

Moreover, strong steps have to be taken to reverse the demographic invasion of Jammu by illegal Rohingyas and others.

Jammu & Kashmir needs to be kept free of the corrosive and soft-separatist discourse that our election cycles unfailingly generate. We can’t afford to let the sacrifices made by security forces and ordinary citizens go waste, just to appease the same Western liberal democracies that are in bed with Pakistan, the Islamo-fascist terrorist state pulling the strings of the Kashmir jihad.