A day after Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha handed over a government job appointment letter to Suneeta Pandith, wife of Suneel Pandith, a Kashmiri Pandit who was shot dead by terrorists in Chotipora area of Shopian on August 16 last year, one more Kashmiri Hindu fell to the bullets of terrorists on Sunday.Sanjay Sharma, who worked as an ATM guard, was shot in the chest at point-blank range barely 100 metres from his residence in the Achan area of the south Kashmir district of Pulwama at around 11 am. He was rushed to a hospital by passersby but succumbed to injuries.It was the first attack on a member of the minority community in Kashmir this year.Last year, terrorists carried out nearly 30 attacks on civilians, killing 18 persons including three Kashmiri Pandits, a bank manager from Rajasthan, a woman teacher from Jammu and eight non-local workers.Pertinently thousands of Prime Minister package Kashmiri migrant Pandit employees and reserved category Dogra employees are camping in Jammu seeking their relocation after they fled the Valley in May last year following targeted killings of their two colleagues – Rahul Bhat and Rajni Balla.
Soon after the killing of Sanjay Sharma, condolences from LG to almost all political leaders started poring in with people expressing shock and vowing to punish the killers. This has now become a routine practice. People continue to fall prey to the bullets of terrorists, condemnations pour in and the life goes on. However, it doesn’t go on normally for the families who have lost their kin. No, never, the life can’t be as it was pre-murder. It is life long trauma for Sanjay Sharma’s kids, wife and other family members who would always wonder that why he was targeted. He, alongwith his family preferred to stay put despite all odds and had to pay by his life. The incident has shocked the entire village and surrounding areas as people from the minority community were seen mourning the death and describing the attack as a slur on the face of the village and on the very concept of Kashmiriyat.
These attacks are indicative of only one reality – those behind these attacks can never be friends of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Those who are on this killing spree are trying to drag Kashmir back to the dirty violence. It is madness and nobody can approve such crimes. If killing people for political, religious and ideological differences becomes a norm then everyone would be hunting for everyone. The world will become a murderous field and no one will have any safety and security. Those who have killed Sharma have neither helped the society nor their own selves. They have not taken the lives of an unarmed civilians but devastated a whole family and earned for themselves the hellfire hereafter.
Violence has no religion, it has no ethics or principles. It can only kill and destroy. Those who are indulging in violence or propagating violent ideologies need to understand that Allah has not created this world for death and destruction. He created a special specie – humans – with the intension that this specie will beautify his world with love and compassion. The murderers are brazenly and shamelessly trying to negate Allah’s plan. Fact of the matter is that they will never succeed in their designs. The society has to wake up and raise its voice against the violence. The terrorists involved in these murders are the ones who have brought all kinds of miseries to the people of Kashmir. They have disturbed the social fabric here and created an atmosphere of insecurity all over. Such mindless and senseless murderers have no place in any civilized society.
That said, the administration can’t hide behind condemnations alone. That the members of the minority community are being targeted is a reality and they being insecure has a natural fall out of these insecurities. The murders should be properly investigated into. This goes without saying that terrorists don’t operate in vacuum, they have a support system and that system should be identified and dealt with. Besides, the administration should ensure that no more civilians fall prey to bullets and that can be done only if the killing is properly investigated.
