When the rest of the country was celebrating the festival of Diwali with great pomp and enthusiasm, 15 Kashmiri Pandit families fled their ancestral homes situated in Kashmir’s Shopian and went on their hardest journey, to Jammu. These are the families which had not even escaped during the 90s rampant with terror.
One of these families is of the elder brother of Purna Krishna Bhat, Ashwini Bhat. On 15th October, Puran Krishna Bhat was killed at the hands of terrorists in Shopian, in his apple orchard, after which these families were living in terror and had made up their minds to leave their homes.
All the families which have left their homes are in great shock as in the last 32 years, they had never imagined leaving Kashmir, but the situation had exacerbated so much that they had to remain locked inside their homes, and therefore, it was not possible for them to continue living there. In order to protect their lives, they had to leave everything from their homes, plots, to their orchards.
Ashwini Bhat has said that he would never like to go back to Kashmir and neither will he let his children go back as the lives of his family members is much more important than the 12.5 acres of land, they own in Shopian. Another family, which has reached Jammu from Shopian stated that when back in August, two Kashmiri Pandit brothers were targeted by the terrorists, they had appealed to the administration for protection, but on the ground level, the situation is worsening.
There were around 800 Pandit families who never left the valley despite the dangers of terrorism lurking all around, but now, since the target killings have started, these families are fleeing slowly. Terrorist organizations are killing Kashmiri Pandits and migrant labourers. This year, till now, 30 citizens have been killed, as a result of which, Kashmiri Pandit employees have been protesting in the valley for the last six months. The protestors are demanding postings outside the valley
