- PRIME TARGETS
The Kashmiri
Pandits (Hindus) in the valley of Kashmir,
irrespective of their age, sex, position status
or situation became the prime target of the
terrorists' onslaught. They were warned and
threatened, individually and collectively,
through word of mouth, through insinuation and
innuendo, through posters and press and over
loud speakers installed in thousands of mosques
all over the valley. Fear loomed large and the
terrorist shadow stalked educational markets and
other public places wherever the Kashmiri
Pandits had a representation, however small.
They were identified and denounced; hit lists
were exhibited on electric poles, office doors
and entries to numerous institutions; and the
public at large was exhorted to watch them and
hound them out. They were followed and kidnapped
from their homes and places of work and
interrogated and tortured. A spree of killings
of the intellectuals of the community started.
This was followed by indiscriminate gunning
down, hanging, dismembering, tying with grenades
and blasting into pieces, skinning, burning and
sawing alive the members of this ethnic minority
of all walks of life. Many of the victims after
being butchered were thrown into streets as
exhibits for everybody to get terrorised. The
bereaved were not permitted to mourn the dead
and perform the last rites. Those who dared to
attend the funeral were earmarked for reprisals.
Molestation and rape was the order of the day.
 
Ethnic cleansing of
Kashmiri Pandits.
The gamut of the
terrorists' depredations puts the notorious
programs in shade and leaves nobody in doubt
about the design of the terrorists to
exterminate Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) who
started fleeing temporarily out of the valley to
seek shelter in the Jammu province of the State
of Jammu and Kashmir, in Delhi and in other
towns of India during the months of
January-March 1990. A large number preferred to
stay behind, partly hopeful of a let up in the
persecution and the frantic killings and partly
on account of the reassurances by their friends,
neighbours and colleagues of the muslim majority
community. However, indiscriminate murders
gained momentum as also the tauntings, ridicule,
accusations, denigrations and warnings issued to
the Pandits (Hindus ). Those who dared to return
to the valley even after a brief absence were
frisked and taken for questioning and accused of
having spied against the terrorists and of
having received arms training to counter the
terrorism. They were followed like a shadow or
given a time limit of a few hours or a day to
quit the Valley.
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