Kashmiri Pandit shot dead in J&K’s Pulwama

Srinagar: Terrorists on Sunday gunned down a middle-aged Kashmiri Pandit in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The killing of a member of the minority community evoked widespread condemnation across the valley. 

Deputy Inspector General of Police, South Kashmir, Mohammad Rayees Bhat, told India Narrative that the assassin,  fired pistol shots at 40-year-old Sanjay Kumar Sharma in the close vicinity of his residence at Achen, on Pulwama-Lassipora Road at around 10.35 a.m. Sharma sustained critical injuries in the attack and died while he was being rushed to hospital.

The DIG said that Sharma was working as a security guard at the local ATM of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank but he was not on duty when he was ambushed. He leaves behind his wife and a young daughter. He also has two brothers and  belongs to a Kashmiri Pandit family which had not migrated to Jammu or any other place in the mass displacement of the minority community in 1989-90 or thereafter.

“We have got some critical clues about the killers which we are not sharing with the media at the moment. We are sure to track them down and bring them to justice very soon”, DIG South Kashmir asserted.

Residents gathered at the house of the slain civilian to console the bereaved family. They came out with unequivocal condemnation of the terrorist act and said that it had brought a slur on the name of the neighbourhood. They said that it was the only Pandit family which had not migrated outside Kashmir.

“Whosoever has committed this crime and martyred our brother has brought shame to our name. It is a blot on the Hindu-Muslim harmony and brotherhood, on our Ganga-Jamuna ethos. We all residents of this village, all Muslims, condemn this innocent killing”, said a neighbour of Sharma’s.

Senior Government functionaries, including Chief Secretary, Director General of Police and Special Director CID, rushed from Jammu to Srinagar.

Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, leaders of almost all the political parties and representatives of civil society condemned Sharma’s killing which was executed in broad daylight. It is for the first time that a member of the minority community has been killed in a terrorist attack since the beginning of 2023. Sunday’s attack occurred close to the Lassipora Industrial Estate where a large number of private investors, including Sajjan Jindal’s JSW Steel are setting up their units.