In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the President of Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), Sanjay Tickoo, has said that abrogation of Article 370 has made the territory more dangerous than 1990
Sanjay Tickoo in a media interview in Srinagar said when Articles 370 and 35-A were scrapped in August 5, 2019 and the Kashmir was bifurcated into union territories whatever lofty claims the Bharatiya Janata Party may make, the truth is that Kashmiris were kept in an open prison.
He said no communication was allowed and we were cut off from each other and the rest of the world.
He said Kashmiri Pandits living in different parts of India most of them were those who had migrated way before the 90s. As a Kashmiri Pandit who is living in the valley has nothing positive about the August 5 decision of the Indian government. It was a terrible decision.
To a query he said, “As a Kashmiri, irrespective of which community I come from, 370 was my identity. It has been snatched from me. It safeguarded our rights and interests and that includes the rights of the Dogras and other ethnicities and communities from Jammu and Ladakh as well.”
Sanjay Tickoo there are around 800 KP families living in Kashmir. From 2003 to 2021, barring two political killings which happened alongside several political killings of Muslims as well, there was not a single killing of a common Kashmiri Pandit. And that was because there was a protective wall, not just from the separatist leadership, especially the late Syed Ali Shah Geelani, but also from the civil society. That strong wall is gone now. Nobody is willing to stand up for us as they would do earlier.
He appealed to the majority community, preachers and others to come out and show solidarity with the KPs. “There are some hardcore rightwing KP organisations that constantly keep demonizing Kashmiri Muslims is no doubt that such organisations and individuals can’t be our friends or representatives, as they claim. But I must also tell you that there are such elements in the majority community as well that need to be discouraged,” he maintained.—KMS
