Death of Kashmiri Pandit and bank guard Sanjay Sharma Pulwama is another killing in the series of attacks on the minority community in the Valley at the hands of terrorist gunmen. Sharma is the second Pandit to fall prey to militancy in the Pulwama area after the death of Janki Nath at the height of militancy in 1990. While the killing may be a deliberate ploy by the terrorists to create fear among the minority community in the area, it also indicates the failure of the security agencies to adequately protect the poor residents. The modus operandi of radical elements targeting civilians has always been clear – attacks are meant to invite state reprisals and repression, in turn fueling discontent and disaffection and recruiting more. On Tuesday, after a follow-up operation that resulted in the killing of an army jawan and two terrorists, security forces claimed that Sharma’s assailant has now been killed. But this has done little to assuage the fear that has gripped the Pandits in the Valley and especially in Pulwama. Last year, militant attacks led to the death of 29 civilians, including three local Pandits, three other Hindus and eight non-local labourers, and an exodus of 5,500 Pandit employees from the Valley.
All political parties, including separatists such as the Hurriyat Conference, as well as civil society organizations, have condemned the attacks, but the repeated and brazen nature of the killings points, at one level, to a breakdown in relations between the administration and civilians, leading to Inability of the administration to anticipate and prevent such attacks. The fact that even areas that were relatively safe for the minority community during the peak of militancy have now become unsafe suggests that the administration should reconsider its security-focused policies in the Valley. The union territory administration and the central government have claimed that drastic steps like diluting Article 370 and bifurcating the state in 2019 have helped curb insurgency and were necessary to bring back normalcy in the Valley. But the repeated attacks on the minority community suggest otherwise – radical sections trying to use the discontent in the Valley to stoke polarisation. Only an effective government by elected representatives of the people of the Valley can do more to rebuild trust between the administration and the citizens. This will help in isolating the radicalized sections and reduce the workload of the security forces in Kashmir. Restoring statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and working towards holding assembly elections is now a clear imperative.