SRINAGAR: Life in the last 30 years in Kashmir has not been “easy” for 52-year-old Sanjay Tickoo. “It was full of struggles, which have not ended for me and other Kashmiri Pandits,” said Tickoo as his eyes glassed remembering a fateful night over 30 years ago. Tickoo’s is one of the few Kashmiri Pandit families which did not flee the Valley in the 1990s. He says that it’s “sheer luck that we stayed back”.
Hailing from Barbarshah area of uptown Srinagar, he said his family too had packed and planned to leave Kashmir in the 1990s after militants started killing Pandits.
“On the day we had to leave for Jammu, my mood changed and I told the truck driver that we don’t want to leave. I had paid Rs 500 in advance. He did not return the money after I told him we won’t be leaving,” said Tickoo, president of Pandit group, Kashmir Pandit Sangarsh Samiti. Once areas such as Barbarshah, Habba Kadal, Rainawari, Sonwar and Indira Nagar in Srinagar had a large population of Pandits, said Tickoo.
The 52-year-old said that life was tough for his family — comprising his parents, an elder brother and sister — who had stayed back. Militants would often barge into their home and security forces would not spare them during cordon and search operations in the 1990s. “Every time we returned from Jammu, we were looked at as suspects by our Muslim neighbours. We also faced a backlash from migrant Pandits, who accused us of being traitors,” he said.
According to Tickoo, a businessman, the Pandits began leaving the Valley from January 1990 and it continued till June. In five months almost all Kashmiri Pandits had left for Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country. Initially, they lived at camps and tents in Jammu in the summer heat which they were not accustomed to. The government then set up two-room quarters at Jagti, Muthi, Purkhoo and TRT Nagrota. The locals in the Valley, National Conference and PDP and separatists blame the then Governor Jagmohan for the mass exodus. The Pandits, however, rejected the claim.
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“I still remember a Muslim neighbour coming to our house in the evening and informing us that he had seen a ‘hit-list’ of militants in a mosque which figured the name of one of our relatives. We took him to TRC Srinagar in the early hours next morning and ferried him to Jammu,” Tickoo said. He said since mid-January they had no contact with their relatives as most of them had taken refuge in Jammu. According to Tickoo, non-migrant Pandits faced difficulty in performing rituals due to non-availability of priests during births and deaths. “In November 1990, when my father died, only six Pandits participated in his cremation. The rest were Muslim neighbours, who carried his body to the cremation ground,” remembered Tickoo.
The family of 33-year-old Sandip Kaul too decided not to leave their home at Karfalli Mohalla area in Srinagar. Before militancy erupted, Pandits dominated the area where Kaul lives, but now only a single-family resides.“My father Poshkar Nath Koul preferred to stay back. We did not face any problem or trouble from our Muslim neighbours in the last 30 years. In fact, they stood with us during our good and bad,” Sandip said. He, however, regrets his father’s decision of staying behind. “All our relatives are outside the Valley. We feel isolated and cut-off.”
“When my father died in 2007, my relatives were outside the Valley. Although my Muslim neighbours stood by me, I missed the comfort of my relatives,” said Sandip, who completed his graduation from SP College in Srinagar in 2008 and was the only non-Muslim student at the college. According to him, due to this isolation, he faces mental health issues.
Both Tickoo and Sandip support setting up of a separate township for Pandits in the Valley. “There is nothing wrong with it. How can migrant Pandits live at their original places because many of them have sold their properties?” they said. According to Tickoo, Muslims and Pandits should stop the false propaganda against each other and start a dialogue.
Rehabilitation
In 2008, the then Congress govt had announced a package for the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants, offering maximum assistance of Rs 7.5 lakh to each family. But the then state government, led by NC, requested the Centre to enhance the package to Rs 20 lakh per family. The plan has since not moved forward.