Rs. 10 per peti: the price of a poor Hindu’s life in Islamist Khilafat of Kashmir

On the 17^th of September, news came of a grenade attack in Shopian, Kashmir by Islamist terrorists on the quarters where poor labourers from UP and Bihar lived. The attack happened at night, when the labourers were asleep after a hard and long day’s “dihadi” (daily wage work).  Two labourers, Shri Ram Sagar and Shri Monish Kumar, both from Kannauj in UP, were severely injured. On the way to the hospital, they breathed their last.

The attack came the day after another Hindu—Shri Puran Kishan Bhat—was shot dead by Islamist terrorists as he was returning to his home from his apple orchard on a bicycle. 

3 Hindus in 2 days. Killed  by Islamist terror in Kashmir. Kashmir valley is almost entirely Muslim.  There are a few thousand Hindus left there, out of a population of almost 400,000 till the 80s.

Both of them died in their sleep. The “beds” (if you can call them that) were nothing more than some straw and an old mattress. The roof on their heads was just some asbestos sheet. You can see their “accommodations” in this video:

Shri Ram Sagar was aged: here are only a couple of his pictures which can be found on social media.

Shri Monish Kumar was a little younger, and I could only find one picture of him on social media.  The picture itself is almost torn.

Their faces will not be paraded before the world media, the way, say, Akhlaq’s were. No. Because they are Hindu.  And killing of Hindus is not sensational news, it is not deemed sensational by our woke-left-liberal lobby that decides the discourse in this country.  Their names and faces will soon be forgotten, if ever they were remembered at all!  In a few days, another Hindu will be killed in Kashmir, and for a day after that, (s)he will be talked of by a few, and then we move on to the next.

Since 2021, at least 18 Hindus have been killed in Kashmir for no fault other than that they were Hindus.  None of them were political workers, or even had any known political affiliation.  They were teachers, farmers, pharmacists, golgappa sellers, apple crate fillers (more on this later), and so on.  Most were poor.  Many, like Shri Ram Sagar and Shri Monish Kumar, had left their families and homes in far off states like UP and Bihar to earn a meagre livelihood in Kashmir, working for the local apple industry, or local construction industry.  A partial list is given below. It is not complete – for instance, it does not have the name of Dilkhush Kumar, the 17 year old Hindu boy from Bihar who was shot dead 4 months ago. 

I felt a familiar anguish when I heard of the killing of Shri Sagar and Shri Kumar. But what prompted me to write this article was the news below:

Both of them were filling cartons or petis of apples for a measly Rs. 10 per peti! And even this was withheld from them by their employer- most likely a Kashmiri Muslim as nearly all the orchards are owned by them, now that the Kashmiri Hindus have been driven away.  They were patiently waiting – what else could they do? For a person in that position, a few hundred rupees is a lot – for the employer to release their payment. Tragically, that never materialised, and the Islamist terrorists got to them before that.

They leave behind wives and children.  Wives who lost their husbands for Rs. 10 per peti. Children who lost their father for Rs. 10 per peti.  It was Rs. 10 per peti that drew them into the Islamist Khilafat of Kashmir.  Rs. 10 per peti that kept them there. And Rs. 10 per peti, waiting for which, they died.

Rs. 10 per peti.  This is the price of a poor Hindu’s life in the Islamist Khilafat of Kashmir.