50 hurt in protest over killing of Kashmiri pandits

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

Fifty people were injured in protests outside the Jammu secretariat over the killing on Friday of pandits in Kashmir after the police resorted to a lathi-charge, teargassing and firing in the air to disperse the gathering. The pandits wanted to submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah.

The rally, taken through the main streets of Jammu city, raised anti-government and anti-Pakistan slogans before reaching the secretariat. This demonstration was in reaction to the killing of seven Kashmiri pandits at Sangrampora village in the central Badgam district of the valley.

The police said 15 militants encircled the homes of the pandits and asked the males to come out. Those who came out were taken some distance away and shot dead by the militants.

Though Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda warned that such harassment would not be tolerated, this incident has damaged the government's efforts to bring back the pandits who migrated from the valley after the troubles began seven years ago.

The Sangrampora pandits lived in amity partly owing to support from their Muslim neighbours. The only surviving male, Somnath, had a different story to tell about what happened. He said a youth came to the village asking for schoolmaster Bhushan Lal. But Bhushan Lal's relatives also came out of their homes and joined him as he was led away. Then the villagers heard shots and went out to find the bodies.

The pandit women were too distraught to arrange for the last rites; it was left to their Muslim neighbours to organise them.

Leaders of the pandit community say Chief Minister Abdullah's offer of Rs 100,000 to families that return to the valley is meaningless, considering the prevailing situation.