Mob burns down Shivalya Temple at Anantnag ; Kashmir plunges back into 1990 crisis

By King C Bharati

Jammu, June 29: Prime Minister’s employment package and the special recruitment drive of the state government for Kashmiri Migrant youth seem to have gone waste as notwithstanding the tall claims of the state government of near normalcy in the Valley, Kashmir is slowly plunging into a deep crisis similar to that of the 1990 when three lakh Kashmiri Pandits had to leave Valley overnight.

The communal overtones have taken over the reins in Kashmir Valley with an unruly mob today attacking a historic Hindu Temple known as Shivalya temple at Janglat Mandi in Anantnag putting the minorities as well as the forthcoming Amarnath Yatra on high risk.
According to sources the attack was not only premeditated but meticulously planned as the mob first targeted the CRPF picket there, snatched their weapons and later destroyed the temple with picks and shovels before burning the entire temple with petrol.

The sources said that high pitch sloganeering of Indian Dogs Go back, Jive Jive Pakistan, Hum Kya Chahtey Azadi, reverberated the communally charged atmosphere adding some people were heard shouting Kashmir Pandits not to fall in the employment trap as they were not welcome in Kashmir.

The sources said that the situation in Kashmir was just like the 1990 when everything went wrong resulting in mass migration of lakhs of Hindus from Valley.

The burning of a Hindu temple after the Babri incident has shaken the Kashmiri Pandit community in Kashmir as well as in Jammu and elsewhere who feel that government was again turning a deaf ear towards Hindu property and religious places in Kashmir exposing its own
shallow claims of taking them back to Valley.

Meanwhile there are reports of attack on minorities and tourists from Mattan, Lal Chowk etc but the reports were not confirmed till the filing of this story.

However there are confirmed reports about burning down of Mattan post office, police Post Bus stand, burning of SRTC petrol pump, stoning of around 25 vehicles in Anantnag district and attack on tourists in Lal Chowk Srinagar besides the communal and anti- India sloganeering almost everywhere in Valley.

In Jammu the recently selected migrant candidates were the worst hit by the incidents in Kashmir who are seemingly shaken out of their wits and in a confusing state as what to do when they are asked to report at their tehsil headquarters even as many leaders have termed the employment package as a bait to make Pandit youth particularly the girls as the sacrificial goats by the Indian as well as state government to present a rosy picture of Kashmir before the world.

However those still living in Valley and the employees who chose to return to their respective districts earlier are having second thoughts with speculations high that another mass migration was in the offing.

“It is a 1990 like situation please talk to the ministers, write something and ask the government to shift us to safer places under security” was a frantic call from one Chuni Lal Bhat (name changed), a migrant move employee who was not sure whether he will make it back home safely.

He said that streets were reverberating with the slogans “Jive Jive Pakistan, Indian Dogs Go Back adding communalism has taken over the current agitation and now minorities were being targeted physically as well as through verbal abuse.

Meanwhile fire-brand Kashmiri Pandit leader and Chairman All Parties Migrant Coordination Committee (APMCC) Vinod Pandit who is camping in Valley while condemning the Shivalya temple incident and terming the situation as volatile has demanded shifting of minorities to safer places and asked the administration to allow him to visit the Shivalya Temple to get the first hand information and assess the damage to the temple while another Kashmiri Pandit leader Bharat Raina also expressed concern over the attack on minorities in Kashmir Valley.
Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti has also alerted its cadre to remain vigilant in view of the attack on Shivalya temple which has put the Amarnath Yatra on high risk.

Responses