It was in 4th January, 1990 when a local Urdu newspaper in Srinagar, published a press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen, set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage Jihad for Jammu and Kashmir’s secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. In the following days, there was near chaos in the Kashmir Valley with Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference Government abdicating all responsibilities of the State. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans. By 2005, there were no Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir Valley; they don’t live here anymore. As many as 3,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits fled their home and hearth and been reduced to living the lives of refugees in their own country. And now after over 100 days unrest after the killing of top Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani, his successor and self-styled commander of the outfit Zakir Rashid Bhat alias ‘Musa’ asking migrant Kashmiri Pandits to return to their homes, assuring protection to them and also said it was planning to raise a group of Sikh youths does not mean that the militant outfit is concerned about their hardships. It could be a ploy by Pakistan to show the ‘humane face’ to the world look we believe in humanity. The inclusion of Sikhs is a clear message that Kashmiri and Punjabi militants sitting in the safe and comfy environment of Pakistani masters once again want to revive militancy in Punjab and Kashmir. Bhat who is an engineering dropout from a Punjab college has made it clear that militant outfit was planning to raise an exclusive group of Sikh youths in the outfit. Such an effort was there during the eighties when militant groups from Kashmir and Punjab joined hands and carried out subversive activities in Jammu and Kashmir and the remnants of such a nexus was buried somewhere in Jammu and sympathies were there always with Kashmir militancy; that could be the reason why now Hizbul is talking of raising Sikh outfit under its command. The recent incidents of weapon snatching or policemen surrendering their weapons without firing a single shot tells the story of an underground movement going on to revive once again terrorism in the border states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.
