SRINAGAR: J&K police have tightened security in areas of the Valley where Kashmiri Pandits live and allowed some employees to work from home temporarily after Panun Kashmir claimed a purported threat letter from Lashkar affiliate United Liberation Council naming several community members and listing their phone numbers.“Authorities must investigate the source of the information, the digital trail behind the communication and whether any surveillance, profiling or reconnaissance of the targeted persons has taken place,” Agnishekar, convenor of Panun Kashmir said, adding it was important to establish whether the “perpetrators actually possessed the information or were using it as a form of psychological warfare”.IGP Kashmir VK Birdi said the police were probing the threat letter, believed to have been released on social media on Aug 7. Divisional commissioner Anshul Garg said some Pandits had been allowed to work from home, but there was no blanket order. Education officials said the department had not issued any such work-from-home order for all Pandit staff.According to Panun Kashmir’s Agnishekar, “the letter represented a serious escalation as it went beyond generic threats and appeared to identify individuals as potential targets while claiming access to information about their families, locations and places of work”.“The publication of names and personal contact details, accompanied by explicit threats to pursue the individuals and their families, is a matter of grave concern. This is not something that can be dismissed as mere rhetoric. It has the unmistakable potential to intimidate the targeted individuals and terrorise the wider Kashmiri Pandit community,” Agnishekar said.The threat was particularly disturbing in view of the community’s history of being victims of targeted killings, intimidation and forced displacement from Kashmir, Agnishekar pointed out. Jammu-based Panun Kashmir seeks a separate homeland for Pandits in the Valley with Union territory status.Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti, another community group representing those who stayed back in the Valley after 1990s’ migration, called the new threat a conspiracy to sabotage their existence. “Recent terror attacks in south Kashmir, followed by fresh threat posters naming Kashmiri Pandit employees, have once again exposed the chilling sense of vulnerability,” KPSS said.
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In 2008, the Manmohan Singh-led UPA govt introduced a rehabilitation package for the Pandits who had to leave the Valley in the 1990s in the face of terror. Among other measures, the package provided 6,000 govt jobs and created new posts. Such people are posted in various departments across Kashmir and are called “PM package employees”.
